Embarrassed Out of Church
EMBARRASSED INTO ENLIGHTENMENT
"EMBARRASSED OUT OF CHURCH"
By
Jared Six
"A really religious upbringing causes some really embarrassing things to happen to a young boy, and it forces him to have to come up with a less embarrassing belief about life and his place in the universe..."
1.
"JUDGEMENT DAY"
Back when I was a kid, my dad used to tell me that on "Judgement Day" everyone who ever lived was going to come together in a giant movie theater, and one by one, everyone's entire life from start to finish would be played on the big screen for all to see.
He said that EVERYTHING we ever did in life would then be revealed to everyone. (All the good things we ever did, all the bad things we ever did, and everything in between.)
But what scared me most about this scenario as a kid was actually the "everything in between" part.
I mean, I had never committed any of the major sins like "murder", "adultery", or "blasphemy", and I went to church on Sundays like I was supposed to. But there were a lot of things that I did on a daily basis that I would be embarrassed to do in front of other people. (Much less in front of everyone who ever lived!)
So whenever I would change my clothes, use the bathroom, or bathe, I would turn the lights off and do them in the dark. (That way, when my life was shown on "Judgement Day", everyone wouldn't be able to see me naked, and... well... "judge" me.)
Because of all this, I ended up developing such a strong phobia of being seen naked, that when my grandpa had to be moved into an "assisted living facility" due to his health getting so bad that he could no longer change his clothes, use the bathroom, or bathe without having someone there to help him do it, I instantly became the "health nut" in my family because of how scared I was of ending up like that someday.
2.
"A SHELTERED CHILDHOOD"
I was raised by parents who were deeply religious. (They were "Mormons" to be specific, and they went out of their way to shelter me from a lot of things during my childhood.)
We had a TV when I was a kid, but we only had one channel. (The PBS channel.) So the only TV shows that I ever saw as a kid were "family friendly" ones like "Sesame Street".
We also owned a library of movies on VHS tapes, but the only movies that were allowed in our house were "G-rated" ones like "Disney" movies.
But before I could actually watch a movie, my parents would watch it by themselves first, and if there was anything even remotely "sexual" or "vulgar" in it, they would set up 2 VCR players, then they would put the original film in one VCR and a blank VCR tape in the other, and they would make a special edited copy of the movie with all of the "bad parts" that they didn't want me to see cut out.
We lived on a farm that was way out in the country, and where neighbors lived miles apart from each other. And other than going to church on Sundays, we almost never left the farm. (My dad was really good at building and fixing things, my mom really good at cooking and sewing, and we grew most of our food.)
My parents also "home-schooled" me, because they didn't agree with a lot of the things that they taught in public schools. (And because they worried that "non-Mormon" kids would have a bad influence on me.)
So I didn't have any friends growing up, but I actually loved growing up the way that I did.
Our property had over 1,000 acres of forests that I was free to roam and explore, and I was scared to meet new people anyway. So I was happy to spend my childhood deep in nature and isolated from strangers, and I imagined that I would stay on the farm for the rest of my life.
But then one day a mysterious black car drove up our driveway...
STRANGER DANGER
Our driveway was 8 miles long, and it was an unpaved dirt road that was full of holes and dangerous steep hills. So, it was extremely rare that someone would just "show up" at our house unexpectedly.
It would always terrify me to see an unknown car slowly coming up our long and treacherous driveway because anyone who would dare to drive up it would almost have to be a "crazy person"!
It would also take the police almost an hour to get to our house if we ever had to call them since we were living so deep in the middle of nowhere. (And my dad would actually get his shotgun whenever we heard the sound of a car coming up our driveway just to be on the safe side.)
So an unknown car coming up our driveway was the ultimate "stranger danger" for me as a kid!
As the unknown car got closer, I ran and hid in the house while my parents went outside to see who it was and what they wanted. And I watched through the window as two men and one woman who were all wearing business suits got out of the car and informed my parents that they could no longer "home school" me.
I remember that the woman seemed really upset at my parents and that she kept telling them that the way that I was being raised was "child abuse", and she asked them how they expected me to ever be able to face the "real world" someday as an adult if they kept me out of it for my entire childhood.
The strangers eventually got back in their car and left, but before they did, they gave my parents a "court order" stating that I had to start going to school the following Monday and that if I didn't show up, my parents would both be arrested, and they would lose custody of me!
So I had no choice but to start going to school, and because I was already 15 years old they started me in the 9th grade.
3.
"GOING TO SCHOOL"
For my first day of school, my mom suggested that I wear my "church clothes" so I could make a really good first impression on all my new classmates. I thought it was a great idea, so I put on some black dress pants, a white dress shirt, and a black tie, and then I walked to the end of the driveway and waited for the school bus.
Because I had never been to school before, I imagined that all the other kids at school would be dressed up like that as well. But once the bus came and I got on it, I immediately noticed that all the other kids on the bus were just wearing T-shirts and blue jeans, and they were all staring at me like I was from another planet.
I felt so embarrassed and nervous that I didn't dare make eye contact with anyone, and I just looked for a quiet place to sit down.
The seats on the bus were built so that 2 kids could sit in each seat, and all of the seats already had at least one kid in them except for one. So I sat in the one empty seat and just looked out the window while trying to ignore the feeling that everyone was looking at me and judging me.
About 10 minutes later, the bus made another stop, and a really big teenage boy who was wearing a football jersey got on the bus and sat in the seat with me.
I nervously smiled and said "Hello" to him, and luckily, he smiled and said, "Hello" back to me. (Although, when he smiled, it kind of looked like he was struggling not to laugh about the way I was dressed.)
Because he was bigger than everyone else on the bus, I thought to myself that it would be really smart to have him as a friend because nobody would want to be mean to me if they knew he liked me. So I tried to think of a way to strike up a friendly conversation with him...
I noticed that he had a book in his hand, so I pointed at it and casually asked him, "What book is that?" and he told me that it was just a book that he had to read and do a "book report" on about the Native American Indians." Then he handed me the book so I could look at it.
The cover of the book featured a drawing of some Indians sitting in a circle around a campfire, and the first thing I noticed was that the Indians weren't wearing any shirts. (Which technically wasn't "immoral" because all of the Indians in the picture were males.) But because the Indians all had long hair (which I had always been told that only women were allowed to have) and because they were also wearing loincloths (which looked just like skirts to me) I thought that they might be women with no shirts on!
My eyes almost bulged out of my head, and I was so shocked by what I was looking at that my heart started pounding out of control, and I started shaking wildly and wasn't sure if I should look away or keep looking...
The big kid noticed that something was wrong, so he asked me, "Are you OK man?" and I pointed at the drawing of the Indians and nervously whispered to him, "Are those girls???"
He then burst out laughing and turned to the kids sitting behind us saying, "Hey, this new kid saw this book cover and was like, "Oh my God are those topless girls???" and everyone started laughing.
Then a boy who was sitting behind us leaned his head over the seat to look at me, and he said, "Hey man, can I ask you a serious question?" so I said "Yes", and then he asked me, "Have you ever seen a pair of boobs before?" and because of my incredibly wholesome upbringing, I had never even heard the word "boobs" before, so I got really confused and asked, "What are those???" which made everyone burst out laughing even harder!
By the time we got to school, everyone on the bus had laughed about the incident (including the old man who was driving the bus) and by the end of my first day of school, everyone at school was referring to me as "The New Virgin".
4.
"GOING ON A MISSION"
When I went to church the following Sunday, the president of my church ("Brother Smith") came up to me after church and said, "So I hear that you are going to a public school now." And then he asked me, "How do you like it so far?"
I put on a fake smile and told him, "It's OK." But I guess that it was obvious to him that I didn't mean it, because he put his hands on his hips, frowned, and said, "Tell me the truth."
I really believed back then that "Brother Smith" had the power to read minds, because he was the president of the church. And unlike the president of the "United States" (who gets elected by human voters) the president of a "Mormon" church is supposedly chosen by God himself to be the one in charge. And the president of the church is also supposedly in constant communication with God because he needs God's advice (and approval) to make important decisions about the church.
I felt that it was impossible to keep secrets from "Brother Smith" since he was always talking to "God" and since "God" knew everything. So I confessed to him that I was actually having a lot of difficulties at school.
I told him that even though there were almost 1,000 kids at my school, I was the only "Mormon" there, and then I told him about how the other kids at school were making fun of me because I was still a "virgin".
"Brother Smith" seemed very concerned about what I was telling him, and he said that he wanted to have a meeting with me in his office the following Sunday after church.
Normally whenever "Brother Smith" wanted to have a meeting with me in his office, it was because he wanted to talk to me about going on a "mission".
Once a "Mormon" boy became an adult, he was expected to devote 2 years of his life to the Lord by serving as a "missionary" for the church.
When you become a "Mormon missionary", the church will send you to a location of their choosing (possibly even to a foreign country) and for the next 2 years, your job will be to go around knocking on doors and trying to convert "Non-Mormons" into "Mormons".
Due to all of the social phobias that I had, I didn't want to go on a mission. But "Brother Smith" had been putting an unbelievable amount of pressure on me to do it.
THE MEETING
When I walked into "Brother Smith's" office the following Sunday, he had a big smile on his face and he told me, "I have a surprise for you!"
He then reached under his desk, pulled out a big box that was wrapped up like a Christmas present, and said, "The Lord personally asked me to give you this great gift from him!"
I was so excited that I quickly opened it to see what was inside...
But it ended up being a big box containing 1,000 small paper booklets entitled "For the Strength of Youth".
In confusion, I asked him, "What are these?" and he said that they were small informational pamphlets about the "Mormon" church that I could give to each of my new classmates at school.
He then explained that the pamphlets were specifically made for teenagers and that they talked about the moral standards that all of the young boys and girls at my school should strive to live by to keep the "Law of Chastity". (Like not wearing revealing clothing, getting up and walking out of a movie theater if the movie they are watching starts to get sexual, and of course, waiting until they are married to have sex.)
I felt as if every cell in my body was cringing because I knew full well that if I actually gave these little booklets to all of the kids at school, I was going to be mocked relentlessly for it. But I also believed that if I didn't do it, God was going to be mad at me for not doing it, because "Brother Smith" told me that God was counting on me to help save 1,000 of his "lost children" by telling them about the church.
I didn't want to do it, but because I was so "God-fearing" at the time, I ended up stuffing all of the booklets into my backpack and taking them to school with me the next morning. Then during "lunch" when me and all of the other kids were in the cafeteria eating, I took out the booklets and started walking around and passing them out to everyone.
All I did was hand them to people, and whenever someone would ask me, "What's this?" I would just shrug my shoulders and act like I didn't know because of how embarrassed I felt.
My hope was that everyone would just throw the booklets away without even bothering to read them. (That way I wouldn't have to face the ridicule of my classmates for giving it to them, nor would I have to face the wrath of God for not giving it to them.)
But everyone was so confused that they ended up reading the booklets just to see what in the world they were. And just as I feared, I became the laughingstock of my school, and I was now being referred to as "The Mormon Virgin".
Because of how embarrassed I felt as I was handing out those little "Mormon" booklets, it really hit me that there was no way that I was actually going to be able to spend 2 years of my life trying to convert people to the "Mormon" church.
I believed that the "Mormon" church was true, but like they say, "God works in mysterious ways", and let's just say that the "Mormon" God worked in such mysterious and bizarre ways that I knew that most "non-Mormons" would want to laugh at me for actually believing in such a seemingly strange religion.
5.
"BECOMING AN ARTIST"
Because I had spent my whole life working on a farm, I was used to working all day (except on Sundays) and it was difficult for me to just sit still for several hours a day at school.
So I started taking a pencil and scribbling on paper during class just to release some of the pent-up energy that I had, and this eventually evolved into drawing, and I ended up enjoying drawing so much that I started doing it any chance I could at school.
For example, one time in "History Class" we had to take a test about "World War 2", and when the teacher passed out the test papers, I left all of the answers blank and instead just turned the test paper over to the blank side, and then I drew a picture of a bunch of senile old people at "Walmart" opening boxes of soap, and I called this art piece...
"Old People Opening Boxes of Soap Just to See If There Is Really Soap in Them".
I got a 0% on the test since I didn't even fill out any of the questions and I also got in trouble over it, but I didn't care, because drawing was making school fun for me.
I had to take a reading and writing course at school where I would often have to write short stories, and I ended up enjoying writing a lot as well.
Below are 3 short stories that I wrote for school way back when I was a teenager...
TALKING PARROTS THAT RUINED THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE "KINDERGARTEN COP"
There have been many cases where "Animal Rights Activists" will do something that really annoys people. (Like throwing buckets of red paint on people who are wearing fur coats.)
But there has never been a case quite like this one...
An "Animal Rights Activist" was so upset when a pet store opened up right across the street from his house, that he decided to express his rage by breaking into the pet store and setting all of the animals free.
The pet store was closed on Sundays, so he broke into the store on a Sunday, and he released the cats, the dogs, the turtles, the rabbits, the hamsters, and the snakes.
But when he got to the parrots, he decided that since people don't like it when you ruin the ending of a movie that they haven't seen yet, he trained the parrots to talk about the ending of the "Arnold Schwarzenegger" movie "Kindergarten Cop" and then he set them free.
The parrots then flew around the city, and they kept landing on random people's shoulders and ruining the ending of the movie "Kindergarten Cop" for thousands of people who had never seen it.
THE END
THE FLIGHT OF STAIRS DRIVER'S-ED COURSE
There have been many cases where something has developed a completely unexpected "cult following" of fanatic fans. (Like the movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".)
But there has never been a case quite like this one...
One night, a young man was looking out of his bedroom window through a telescope and watching airplanes take off at a nearby airport, and he noticed that the airport had those big mobile flights of stairs that were driven up to the airplane doors.
He then noticed that on the far end of the airport, they had what appeared to be a "driver's-ed course" set up for people who wanted to become drivers of these mobile staircases. (Which he was oddly fascinated by.) And he found out that every Tuesday night people who wanted to get a license to drive these mobile staircases would have their driving tests there.
He started telling his friends about this unusual "driver's-ed course" and inviting them over to his house on Tuesday nights to watch it with him through his telescope. And as more and more people started coming over to watch it, his bedroom simply became too small to hold everyone who shared his odd fascination with it.
So they eventually all started walking to the airport to watch it live and in person. And before you knew it, a large crowd of people was showing up every Tuesday night to watch it.
But the airport management was disturbed by the cult's presence, and they swiftly banned them from the airport property.
But the cult fought back by putting their money together and buying the land surrounding the "driver's-ed course", and building a huge stadium around it.
Every Tuesday night the stadium was packed, and the cult would "cheer" whenever a driver would pass the test and get his license (or make a really good dodge on a cone) and the cult would "boo" whenever a driver would hit a cone and fail the test (and it would get downright riotous in the rare times when a driver would hit a cone and the driver's-ed instructor wouldn't see it) and the airport management didn't know what to think of it all...
The cult would also bring unusual signs to the show to hold up because it would confuse the drivers and make the test even more challenging.
THE END
THE WALRUS THAT HAD A VIETNAM FLASHBACK
There have been many cases where a person who gets an organ transplant will suddenly start to act a lot like the person whom the organ originally belonged to. (They might start liking the same foods, listening to the same music, or even wearing the same style of clothing as the donor, and some believe that this is because they have a part of that person inside of them.)
But there has never been a case quite like this one...
A baby male walrus was born at a zoo with a rare heart problem and wasn't expected to live for long. But when scientists at a nearby lab heard about it, they came up with the idea of trying to put a human heart inside of a walrus and having the first ever "human-to-walrus heart transplant".
It was a highly controversial surgery. But because it was the only hope for saving the walrus's life, and because there had been some successful organ transplants between different species in the past, the zoo agreed to let the scientists have him, and the surgery ended up being a success!
Because it was the first surgery of its kind, the scientists decided to keep the walrus at their lab for the rest of his life so that they could monitor the long-term effects of this incredible medical achievement.
According to the "Donor Information Form", the human heart originally belonged to a man named "Harold Baxter", but the scientists didn't really know anything else about the donor until after the surgery when they decided to do an extensive online "background check" for "Harold Baxter" out of curiosity, and they were able to collect the following pieces of personal information about him...
CRIMINAL RECORDS
- He went to jail once in his youth for "destruction of private property", and he actually escaped from jail by breaking a hole in the ceiling and climbing out, but he was re-captured shortly after his escape.
MILITARY RECORDS
- He was drafted into the army during "The Vietnam War" in 1965, and he suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach.
MEDICAL RECORDS
- He continued to have pains in his stomach which would trigger bad flashbacks from the war.
EMPLOYMENT RECORDS
- He worked for the post office for many years and was forced to go to "anger management" several times due to getting stressed out and losing his temper at work.
DEATH RECORDS
- He died from an overdose of sleeping pills.
The walrus ended up becoming like a pet to the scientists, and when they weren't doing experiments on him, they would take him for walks and play with him like a dog.
They even trained the walrus to do certain tricks that dogs do, and one of those tricks was to fetch the newspapers that were delivered to the front door of the lab every morning and put one of them in each of the lab rooms.
But after fetching and delivering the newspapers for a couple of months, the walrus became extremely disgruntled and sick of doing it, and one morning as the walrus was putting a newspaper inside one of the labs, he finally snapped and started grunting and knocking over everything in the room!
He knocked over a big shelf that was full of glass test tubes containing various kinds of "genetically modified growth hormones", and the test tubes fell to the ground and shattered.
So the walrus was now surrounded by a big puddle of growth hormones, and not knowing any better, he started drinking the puddle.
But after he drank it all up, he was seized by the staff and locked in an empty room until they could figure out a sedative to give him, and while he was in the room he suddenly started to shake uncontrollably, and then his whole body started to grow...
The walrus grew a foot taller, then another foot, and another foot, and he didn't stop growing until he burst through the laboratory ceiling headfirst and was over 100 feet tall!
The walrus crawled out of what was left of the lab and stood up. And because he was so tall, he could see the ocean in the distance. (Which naturally made him feel homesick.) So he started wobbling towards it...
But there was a big city that was between the walrus and the ocean, and the only way for the walrus to get to the ocean was to cross the city!
It was a peaceful and quiet day in the city, but the peace and quiet turned into chaos and screaming as the people saw the giant walrus approaching their city!
When the walrus got to the city, he wasn't trying to hurt anybody. (He was crushing cars and knocking over buildings on accident, but in reality, he was just as frightened as all of the people were.)
So the "Armed Forces" showed up, and they surrounded the walrus with tanks, helicopters, and soldiers on foot. And the walrus just covered his eyes as they opened fire on him!
Over 1,000 soldiers were shooting at him from all directions, but their bullets were just bouncing off of his blubber and weren't really phasing him.
Then they loaded a big cannon and shot the giant walrus with a cannonball right in the stomach, which made the walrus quickly uncover his eyes and grab his stomach in pain. And now that his eyes were uncovered, he looked down at all the soldiers shooting at him.
The walrus just stood there with a dazed look on his face as he watched the army shooting at him while he clutched his wounded stomach, and it caused the walrus to have a "Vietnam flashback"!
The walrus went nuts! He destroyed the army and completely leveled the city! And the people didn't know what to do. (They had seen "King Kong" movies and "Godzilla" movies before, but they had never seen anything quite like a giant walrus that was having a "Vietnam flashback"!)
But then the growth hormones that the walrus consumed started to wear off, and he slowly started to shrink. And once he was back to his normal size, he was seized by what was left of the city and put to sleep.
THE END
I got an "F" on all 3 of these short stories because they completely deviated from the original topic that the teacher wanted me to write about. (One of them was supposed to be a 500-word essay on the life of "Abraham Lincoln".) But I didn't care, because writing was making school fun for me.
When I would write, I would feel what some writers have referred to as "automatic writing" where words were coming to me so fast that I was mostly just trying to write them down rather than thinking about what to write, and whenever I would finish a story, I would sign it by writing my name. But instead of writing my real name, I would write "Elbow" for some reason.
6.
"SCIENCE CLASS"
Before I started going to school, I had always been told that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago and that the dinosaurs were mythical creatures that never actually existed.
But once I started taking "Science Class" at school, I found out that there were gigantic dinosaur skeletons in museums all around the world. (Which seemed to prove that the dinosaurs did exist.) And according to my "Science Teacher", these dinosaur bones were estimated to be MILLIONS of years old!
So I got really confused and told "Brother Smith" at church about the dinosaur bones that I was learning about in "Science Class", and he assured me that they were fake. And when I told him that I saw some actual pictures of dinosaur bones in my "Science Book", he said that when God created the Earth, he put fake dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith in him.
I was extremely gullible back then, but even I wanted to cringe when he said that to me because of how ridiculous it sounded.
But the thought that the church might not be true and that God might not even exist was way too scary for me at the time. So I tried to come up with a way to make the idea of God putting fake dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith in him sound less ridiculous, and I came up with the following "scientific theory" about the dinosaurs...
MAYBE EVEN GOD GETS EMBARRASSED
Because I am an artist, I have noticed that any art that I made when I was younger will make me cringe if I look at it now. (Which is a good thing, because it's a sign that I have improved a lot since I made it.)
Even "George Lucas" (the artist who created "Star Wars") is embarrassed by his early "Star Wars" movies now. (Which is why he keeps going back and altering them, and why he has done everything in his power to make it impossible for anyone to be able to go back and watch the actual original versions of them now.)
And since God is the ultimate creator, I wondered if even God gets embarrassed by his older works.
For example...
If God creates a species that ends up going extinct, (like the "dodo bird") then perhaps he would prefer that we all just forget that it ever even existed.
And if God originally gave "giraffes" a much shorter neck, but he kept deciding to make their necks a little bit longer until finally, after thousands of years of experimenting, he finally got their necks to be just the right length, then perhaps he would prefer that we thought that he made the giraffes perfectly on his first try.
And one night, as I was lying in bed and thinking about the idea of even God getting embarrassed, I fell asleep and had a dream that I was God back when the very first dinosaur bones were discovered by man, and below is what I dreamt...
The year was 608 A.D. and I was sitting in Heaven and observing the Earth when I noticed that a group of people who were digging a canal in Africa had just stumbled onto some unbelievably large bones, and they were all running back to their villages to tell everyone about the mysterious giant skeleton that they had just unearthed.
I immediately cringed and thought to myself, "Oh no! The humans just found out about the dinosaurs!"
The dinosaurs were something that I made a really long time ago back in my youth.
Back when I first made the dinosaurs, I thought that they were the coolest thing ever. But they look so big and bulky now that I'm embarrassed to have made them.
And what makes the dinosaurs even more embarrassing is the fact that because I had made them so gigantic, they ended up producing so much methane gas that it actually caused the planet to get so hot that it ultimately killed them off.
Yes, their "flatulence" literally caused them to go extinct, and it ended up causing almost all of the other species that I had created back then to go extinct as well!
The dinosaurs were such a colossal embarrassment to me, that I ended up just picking up a big rock and throwing it at the Earth so that whatever hadn't died yet would instantly be put out of its misery. (And so that any evidence of the dinosaurs would hopefully be erased forever.)
I didn't even want to think about (much less take credit for) something as embarrassing as the dinosaurs. But unfortunately, I had recently released a book called "The Bible" where I claimed to be the one and only "God" and that I created EVERYTHING. So I couldn't just tell everyone that I had nothing to do with the dinosaurs.
But then I came up with a genius lie...
I told everyone who believed in me that when I created the Earth, I secretly put fake dinosaur bones in the dirt just to test people's faith in me.
In other words, I didn't create the dinosaurs. I just created the bones as one big practical joke that only a gullible non-believer would fall for. (And my faithful followers were actually gullible enough to believe me!) LOL
I know that I shouldn't lie, but I have a reputation for being "perfect", and I get really embarrassed when people start to realize that I'm not...
I then woke up from the dream, and although this theory of mine about God getting embarrassed by his older creations might sound silly, it was the best theory that I could come up with at the time to avoid the scary feeling that everything that I had been raised to believe in was false!
MAYBE I'M A DEVIL WORSHIPER
Because I already had a reputation at school for being a weird kid, I started to act weird at school on purpose just so I could at least have some control over the situation, and I found that I enjoyed acting and messing with people's heads.
I started wearing T-shirts to school that I would make at home with strange messages written on them. And one day, I showed up to school wearing a shirt that said, "I DON'T BELIEVE IN MILK".
This shirt ended up confusing people so much that I actually got called to the principal's office about it, and I was told that I had to turn it inside out because one of the teachers (an old lady named "Mrs. Patterson" who was my "social studies" teacher and who was deeply religious) actually got scared and thought that the shirt might be some kind of "satanic" message!
I couldn't believe that someone would actually think that, and it wasn't until someone accused something that I personally made of being "satanic" that I realized that when I was at church I would constantly hear other things being accused of being "satanic".
For example, "Brother Smith" would often warn me and the other young boys at church about "satanic" music like "Metallica", "satanic" books like "Harry Potter", and "satanic" movies like "Back to the Future". And because I had never actually heard, read, or watched any of these things before, combined with the fact that "Brother Smith" was the president of the church, I had always just taken whatever he said as the "gospel truth".
But this incident made me think that maybe "Brother Smith" had never actually heard, read, or watched any of the music, books, or movies that he claimed were "satanic" either. And that maybe people can have an irrational fear of anything that they don't understand or anything that might contradict their religious beliefs.
And shortly after this incident, I started to learn about something in "science class" called "evolution" which seemed to contradict so much of what the church was teaching and preaching, that as soon as I got home from school I tried to look up the word "evolution" in our family home dictionary to learn more about it. But the page that it would be on was mysteriously missing. (Which meant that my parents likely tore it out because they didn't want me to know about "evolution".)
At that point, I started to realize that a lot of information had been hidden from me my whole life and that it was because it contradicted the church. And instead of just feeling fearful of things that contradicted the church, I started to feel a bit curious about them.
7.
"WILD CHILD"
I ended up failing my first year of public schooling, and because I was acting so weird at school, the principal eventually called my house and told my parents that I was showing the symptoms of A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder) and he said that I couldn't return to school until I saw a doctor about it.
So my parents took me to go see a doctor, and without even doing any tests on me (and without even looking at me) the doctor just walked in the room while looking down at his clipboard and writing on it as he said, "So I hear that you're having trouble paying attention at school." and before I could even respond to him, he looked up at my parents instead of me, handed them a prescription for a drug called "Ritalin", and he told them that it should fix my problem.
But when we picked up my prescription at the drug store, there was a long list of "side effects" listed on the bottle like "Diarrhea", "Vomiting" and "Seizures" and my mind immediately became flooded with embarrassing scenarios that could happen to me at school if I took the drug. So whenever my parents would tell me that it was time for me to take the pill, I would secretly hide it under my tongue and spit it back out as soon as they weren't looking, and I never did take it.
There was a boy at my school named "Brandon" who started his own heavy metal band and played the drums. He had wild spiky hair and would always wear black shirts with the names of heavy metal bands that he liked on them. And during classes, he would often have 2 pencils in his hands and be air drumming and headbanging instead of paying attention to the teachers.
"Brandon's" parents also got a phone call from the principal saying that their son was showing the symptoms of A.D.D., and he also ended up with a prescription for "Ritalin". And within a week of taking it, he actually started to calm down and sit still in class.
After taking "Ritalin" for a month, "Brandon" started combing his spikey hair down and stopped wearing heavy black metal t-shirts. And a few weeks later he actually stopped playing the drums and started telling everyone that his heavy metal drumming days were just an embarrassing "gothic phase" that he had went through.
Whenever the principal would see the "new and improved" version of "Brandon", he would put his arm around him and say that he was proud of him. And it made me feel grateful that I never took the drug, because I could tell that what the principal was really proud of was the fact that he was able to tame a wild beast!
For someone like "Brandon", being forced to sit still and listen to boring lectures for several hours a day at school instead of being able to play the drums and create the high-energy music that he loved was like taking a wild animal out of the jungle and forcing it to live in a small cage.
And not only was the restless behavior that "Brandon" had been exhibiting in class no different than the restless behavior that wild animals exhibit when they are forced to live in cages, but the sedation that "Brandon" was now exhibiting was no different than the sedation that wild animals exhibit after getting shot with a tranquilizer.
I later found out that my school was actually getting a big bonus each year for each student that got put on "Ritalin", and it became obvious that the principal was determined to make an example of me like he did with "Brandon".
Because my grades were so bad and because the "Ritalin" had no effect on me since I never actually took it, the principal "banned" me from drawing in class and told me that he was going to see to it that I graduated from High School and that I went to college.
He then started forcing me to study and do my homework and he told me that I would be punished if I got bad grades, so my grades improved but school stopped being fun for me and I just wanted to get it over with.
8.
"SWEARING"
Once I started going to school, I was exposed to all of the "bad words" that my parents did such a good job of keeping me from hearing up until that point. And when I looked these "bad words" up in a dictionary to find out what they meant, I laughed and thought that "swearing" was the funniest thing ever!
One of the reasons that people use "swear words" is for "shock value", and because of how strictly I was raised, "swear words" had about 100 times more "shock value" to me than they did to kids who grew up hearing their own parents use language like that regularly.
And because I had been raised to believe in things based on faith alone, and had been taught not to question things, I tended to take things a lot more literally than other people due to not developing enough skepticism in my early youth to understand things like "sarcasm".
For example, when someone would say something sarcastic to me like, "Hey that's a nice shirt you're wearing buddy." even though there was a big mustard stain on it, I would take it as a sincere compliment, and would then wonder why everyone would laugh when I said, "Thank you".
And if I overheard someone say a sarcastic joke like, "It's so cold outside that I saw a bear wearing a jacket." I would have just enough critical thinking in me to think that maybe the person who said it was drunk or on drugs at the time, and maybe that's why they saw a bear wearing a jacket.
So instead of understanding that "swear words" were just used to help express strong emotions, I would think about the actual dictionary definitions of these word. And if you look up the actual dictionary definitions of most "swear words", I think that you'll agree that it really makes no sense to shout one of these words when you stub your toe or can't find your keys.
So for me personally, "swear words" were so "shocking" and so "nonsensical" that I couldn't help but want to laugh whenever I would hear kids at school say them. But as funny as it was to me to hear people swearing at school, I worried that someday I would be with my deeply religious parents in public and someone would start swearing like that in front of us.
9.
"I'M NOT RACIST, BUT..."
A lot of my family members are. (Especially my older relatives.)
I think this is because everyone in my family is a "Mormon" and because the "Mormon" church used to preach that black people were the descendants of "Cain".
Fortunately, my parents didn't "hate" black people. (But it was painfully obvious at times that they were scared of them.)
We lived way out in the country where the population was 100% white, so the only time I ever saw black people in real life as a kid was in the rare times when me and my parents would go to visit my grandparents. (Who lived in the city where the population was a bit more diverse.)
The Racist Gas Station Incident
One day me and my parents went to visit my grandparents, and shortly before we got to their house, we stopped at a gas station.
We had been driving for several hours, so when my dad got out of the car to put some gas in it, I went ahead and got out of the car too just so I could stretch my legs a bit. And while we were at the pump, there was a very charismatic old black man who was singing and washing cars about 20 feet away from us.
The black man noticed us, so he stopped singing and greeted us by waving and asking, "How are you gentlemen doing today?" and my dad answered him by saying, "Oh very well thank you!"
Then my dad asked him, "And how are you on this fine afternoon?" and the black man looked over at the long line of cars that he was going to have to wash, shook his head, and playfully joked, "Same shit different day!" and I was so shocked that he said the word "shit" in front of my dad, that I actually ducked (as if he had just thrown something at me) and I yelled, "WHOA!!!"
Because I ducked and yelled like that, the black man looked at me with a confused grin, then he started laughing and he turned back to my dad and asked, "What the HELL???"
I then turned to my dad and said, "Dad, I really have to use the bathroom!" and I took off running towards the gas station bathroom as fast as I could.
I didn't really have to use the bathroom, but the black man had used 2 "bad words" in under 10 seconds, and I was afraid that he was going to keep using "bad words", or that my dad would confront him about it in a very "Mormon" way by asking him to please refrain from using profanities and to please use words like "Stuff", or "Doo Doo", or "Number 2" instead of "Shit", so I just wanted to get away from them as fast as possible!
But as I was running, I was so focused on getting away from them that I wasn't paying enough attention to my surroundings, and then I suddenly heard my dad shout to me, "LOOK OUT!!!" so I turned and saw that a car was pulling into the gas station and that it was about to hit me!
Luckily the driver saw me just in the nick of time and he slammed on his brakes, and just barely avoided hitting me.
The driver was furious that I had run in front of his car like that, so he rolled down his window, stuck his head out, and shouted, "WHAT THE FUCK KID???"
Because he yelled the "F" word, I immediately looked back over to my dad's car and saw that my dad was running toward me, so I took off running for the bathroom again out of fear that I was about to hear a lot more "bad words" in front of my dad!
I made it to the bathroom (which was on the side of the gas station) and I locked myself inside it. And while I was in there, I could hear the angry driver yelling at my dad because I had run in front of his car, and the man was using so many "bad words" that I didn't dare come back out of the bathroom until I was sure that the angry man had left the gas station.
When I finally came back out of the bathroom, I felt so traumatized by all the "bad words" that I had just been exposed to in front of my parents, that when I got back in my parent's car, I laid down in the back seat and told my parents that I was really tired and needed a nap. (Because I was simply too uncomfortable to talk to them after hearing all that.)
But as soon as my dad started the car and was about to leave the gas station, the old black man who was washing cars walked over to our car and tapped on my dad's windshield, so my dad rolled down the window (but only about an inch) and the man asked him if I was OK.
I pretended to be asleep and not even hear what was going on, but then the black man walked over to the back door and started knocking on my window, so I opened my eyes and looked up at him with a deer-in-the-headlights stare as he said, "Hey young man, I just wanted to tell you that you really have to be careful and look both ways before you cross the street." and then he said, "That man almost ran over your ass!"
I cringed because he said the word "ass", and I didn't want my parents to know that I knew what that word meant since they had spent so many years doing everything in their power to make sure that I never heard words like that. (They even invested in a special "Family Home Bible" that said "donkey" instead of "ass" like normal Bibles always do.)
So, I pretended to still be innocent by acting really confused and asking him, "He almost ran over my WHAT???" And he said, "Your ASS son! I said he almost ran over your ASS!"
I wasn't sure what to do or say next, so I just put my head down and said, "Oh... Well... I don't know what that word means." and the man was so shocked by my apparent innocence that he shouted, "ARE YOU SERIOUS???" and then he went back to my dad's window and told him, "Hey my man, you better have a talk with your boy if he don't know what "ASS" is yet!"
At that point my dad could no longer hide the fact that he was scared of black people, so he quickly rolled up the last inch of his window and sped away from the gas station so fast that he almost hit someone too! (And I just went back to pretending that I was sleeping until we got to my grandma's house to avoid the "ass talk" that the man suggested my dad have with me!)
When we finally got to my grandparents' house, my grandma asked us how our trip went, and my dad told her about how a man almost hit me with his car when we were at a gas station, and right away my grandma asked him, "Was it a black man?" so my dad thought about it and said, "Yes." and then she asked him, "Well why didn't you call the police and have him arrested?" (As if she thought that the black man had tried to hit me with his car on purpose.)
So, I tried to explain to my grandma that it was actually all my fault because I wasn't looking where in the world I was going and that the black man did everything he could to avoid hitting me. But my grandma was convinced that he was trying to run over me, and when we had dinner later that evening, my grandma said the prayer, and she actually thanked God for causing the black man's car to stop before he could run me over!
We spent the night at my grandparent's house, and the next day me, my dad, and my grandma drove to visit my grandpa. (Who was living in an "assisted living facility" because he could no longer live at home with my grandma due to all of his health problems.)
The Racist Weather Channel Incident
When we got to the "assisted living facility", my grandpa was sitting in a room with a bunch of other elderly people, and they were all watching the TV. But there was a weatherman on the TV giving the local forecast, and the weatherman just happened to be black.
As soon as my grandma saw the black weatherman on the TV, she asked one of the nurses, "What channel do you have this on?" and the nurse told her that it was "The Weather Channel", and in front of everyone my grandma started yelling, "Well he belongs on "B.E.T." ("Black Entertainment Television") not on one of the regular channels!"
My grandma was so upset about the black weatherman, that she insisted that we put my grandpa in the car and that we drive to a restaurant so we could have our get-together away from the TV.
The Racist Restaurant Incident
When we got to the restaurant, my grandma wanted to park in the handicapped parking space (since my grandpa was disabled) but there was already a car parked there, so we couldn't.
Then my grandma noticed that the car in the handicapped spot didn't have a "handicapped parking permit" hanging from the rear-view mirror like you are legally required to if you park there, so she got really mad and said, "Some black guy parked in the handicapped spot illegally!" (She didn't even know who the car belonged to, but in her mind, she was convinced that had to be a black guy, and she insisted that we go to a different restaurant because of it!)
Once we found a restaurant with an empty handicapped parking space, we went inside and found a table, but then a waiter came over to take our order and I got really nervous because it was a black man and I was afraid that my grandma was going to say something racist in front of him!
Luckily, when the waiter asked my grandma what she wanted to eat, she managed to tell him what she wanted without saying anything racist.
But then the waiter turned to my grandpa. (Who could be even worse than my grandma about saying racist things because he had "Alzheimer's" which would cause him to sometimes believe that he was a kid again and the fact that he was a kid back in the "pre-civil rights era" AND he was raised "Mormon" back when the church was openly racist towards black people!)
The waiter asked my grandpa what he would like to order, but my grandpa (who apparently thought that he was 8 years old that day) completely ignored his question and instead just started telling everyone at the table about how his parents had just bought him a big black dog for his 8th birthday, and he said that the dog's fur was so black that they named it "Nigg**".
I felt so embarrassed that the flimsy paper menu that I was holding became a "shield" as I slowly raised it upwards to try to hide my face from the waiter!
And what I couldn't help but think to myself was that everyone in the church knew that the church used to be racist, but everyone decided to take on a form of "selective amnesia" and pretend that they knew nothing about that fact because of how awkward it would be to bring it up.
10.
"MORMON UNDERWEAR"
Because my parents were married in the "Mormon" temple, they wore special underwear known as "Mormon temple garments" to serve as a reminder of their sacred wedding vows.
In the past, "Mormons" actually believed that this underwear was a form of "protective armor". (Like a bulletproof vest!)
In fact, when the founder of the "Mormon" church ("Joseph Smith") died in a shootout back in 1844, his autopsy revealed that he wasn't wearing any underwear when he was shot, and many "Mormons" back then claimed that if he had been wearing his underwear that day he wouldn't have died.
Nowadays, most "Mormons" don't actually believe that this underwear offers that kind of physical protection. (Although, every once in a while, you will hear a story about a "Mormon" being in a car wreck and claiming that their underwear is the only reason they didn't get badly hurt.)
This special underwear is VERY large (it covers more than half of the body) and it is going to look really strange to any "non-Mormon" who sees it. So the "protection" that this underwear actually does provide is in keeping married "Mormons" too embarrassed to wear revealing clothing in public. (Because if they did, their strange underwear would be showing, and it would result in a lot of strange looks.)
I'm guessing that this underwear has even prevented some married "Mormon" men from having an affair when they suddenly found themselves alone with a "non-Mormon" woman and there was a mutual desire to do something. Because they knew that once the clothes started to come off, the woman would get really weirded out by their underwear. (So they probably just told the woman something like, "I'm sorry, but I can't sleep with you because I'm married, and it would be wrong.")
SWIMMING LESSONS
I was about to turn 16 years old, and I still didn't know how to swim.
I had never been to a swimming pool before, and although there was a big pond on our property, I was too afraid to go swimming in it because snakes and other things that could bite would go swimming in it as well.
But there was a beautiful lake that me and my parents would drive past every Sunday on our way to church, and people would often go there to swim. So my dad told me that for my 16th birthday, we could go to the lake and he would finally give me some "swimming lessons".
I was really excited about going to the lake, but on the day that we went, there were a lot of other people there swimming and having cookouts. (Which made me nervous, because it meant that a bunch of strangers were going to be watching me learn how to swim.)
I was also way too shy to take my shirt off or wear shorts in public, and I imagined that everyone was going to be laughing at me for swimming with a shirt and pants on.
My dad, however, wasn't shy at all, so he went to the bathroom to change into his "swimming clothes", and he told me that while he was changing I should try to find a nice spot for us to have our swimming lessons.
So I started walking along the lake and looking for a quiet spot where we could have our swimming lessons without a lot of eyes on us. But then I turned back around and saw my dad coming out of the bathroom wearing a small pair of swimming shorts that only covered about 1/4th of his "Mormon Underwear". (Which meant that the other 3/4ths were completely exposed!)
I got so embarrassed that I hid behind a tree so nobody would know that he was my dad. And because he didn't see me anywhere, he got concerned and started shouting my name loudly (which of course made everyone look at him) and it made me feel so embarrassed that I secretly ran back to the car.
My Dad had no idea where I was or what had happened to me, and I knew that I was probably going to get in a lot of trouble for just going back to the car without even telling him. But there was no way that I could go back out there and face him with all those people around.
So I ended up just waiting inside the car until he eventually returned to the car about 20 minutes later.
As soon as he saw that I was in the car, he looked so happy and relieved to know that I was OK. But then he got really mad and started shouting...
"WHY DID YOU COME BACK TO THE CAR WITHOUT EVEN TELLING ME??? I THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KIDNAPPED OR FALLEN IN THE LAKE AND DROWNED!!!"
I had never seen my dad get that angry before, and I couldn't just tell him the truth (that his underwear was really embarrassing to me) because I knew that to him, his underwear was a sacred symbol of his and my mom's wedding vows.
So I lied and told him that while he was in the bathroom changing, some mean kids wanted to beat me up, and that I had to run back to the car to hide from them.
He then stopped being angry at me and shifted all of his anger towards these mean kids who didn't even exist, and he told me...
"WELL COME ON BACK TO THE LAKE WITH ME, BECAUSE I'M GOING TO GO HAVE A TALK WITH THEIR PARENTS ABOUT THIS!!!"
I then said, "NO, NO, NO, IT'S OK DAD, WHY DON'T WE JUST GO HOME AND LET GOD DEAL WITH THEM ON "JUDGEMENT DAY"."
But my dad refused to let it go, and he told me...
"YOU CAN'T LET PEOPLE TREAT YOU LIKE THAT IN LIFE, AND I AS YOUR FATHER AM DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO LET ANYONE GET AWAY WITH TREATING YOU LIKE THAT, SO COME ON!!!"
He then grabbed me by my arm, pulled me out of the car, and started dragging me back to the lake where all the people were!
As he was dragging me towards all the people, I was saying everything that I could think of to get out of this embarrassing situation, like...
"THEY WERE JUST SOME 8-YEAR-OLD KIDS DAD!"
and
"THEY JUST WANTED TO SQUIRT ME WITH WATER GUNS!"
But it didn't matter... He was determined to turn this situation into a "life lesson".
As we got closer to the people, my dad stopped and asked me to point out the kids who were bullying me. So I looked around, acted confused, and said, "That's funny, I don't see them anywhere." Then I said, "I guess that means that they already left and went home, and maybe we should just leave and go home too." but my dad would have none of it, and he just said, "Then we'll ask around and see if anyone here knows who they were!"
He then dragged me over to a family that consisted of a mom, a dad, and a beautiful teenage girl who I instantly recognized from school. (Her name was "Laura" and she sat next to me in "health class".)
As soon as I realized that it was "Laura", I panicked, because I had a big crush on her, and I tried to hide behind my dad so that she wouldn't see me and know that my dad wore such strange-looking underwear.
Once we got to "Laura" and her parents, my dad said to them, "Excuse me, but I'm looking for some 8-year-old kids who were harassing my son with water guns!"
I did my best to hide behind my dad, but he wasn't a big guy, and I was already taller than him, so "Laura" saw me, and I was so traumatized with embarrassment that "Laura's" mom got really concerned and said, "Oh my goodness, they must have scared the poor thing half to death, because he's shaking like a leaf!"
Then my dad went on to tell them about how I had locked myself in the car for almost half an hour just to hide from these 8-year-old kids with water guns, and I knew that instead of feeling really excited whenever I saw "Laura" at school, I was going to feel really embarrassed instead.
We ended up leaving the lake that day without having any swimming lessons, and I had no desire to ever go back after what happened. So I still didn't know how to swim.
11.
"BAPTISIMS FOR THE DEAD"
When I turned 18, "Brother Smith" drove me and five other teenage boys from our church in a van all the way to the "Holy of Holies", the "Mormon" temple in "Salt Lake City Utah" so that we could perform a special "Mormon" ritual known as "Baptisms for the Dead".
"Mormons" believe that being baptized is necessary for one's salvation in the afterlife, and they also believe that if a person dies without ever being baptized, a living "Mormon" can actually be baptized for them after they die. (As long as they are the same gender as the person who died.)
Each of us was going to get baptized for 10 dead people, and "Brother Smith" kept telling us that while we were getting baptized the spirits of the dead people who we were being baptized for would be there watching and rejoicing as we saved them.
But there was a big problem...
I never learned how to swim due to my dad's underwear, and I was afraid to get baptized because I would have to go completely underwater and I kept thinking that I might drown. But I was forced to go on the trip anyway.
THE TEMPLE
Once we got to "Salt Lake City", we could see the large "Mormon" temple in the distance, it looked like a beautiful castle to me, and I instantly stopped feeling scared and started feeling excited about getting to go inside it!
But once we actually got there and we went inside, things quickly got weird and downright creepy!
There were a lot of strange statues and symbols throughout the temple that I didn't understand, and there were areas of the temple that we weren't allowed to enter. (And the people who were allowed to enter those areas were required to take an oath swearing that they would never reveal what they saw to anyone.)
The rooms that I did get to see looked incredibly expensive. (Fancy furniture, gold-framed paintings, crystal chandeliers, etc.) And because I lived way out in the country and had never seen anything like that before in real life, I was amazed by how expensive everything looked.
But then I sat down on a chair that looked like it was made for a king, and "Brother Smith" freaked out about it and yelled, "Hey! That's a really expensive chair! Don't sit on it!"
And then in front of everyone, he joked that the chair probably cost more than my parent's car, and everyone started laughing. (My family was viewed as the "poor family" in our church, while "Brother Smith" was easily the wealthiest person in our church, and sometimes he wasn't very good at hiding the fact that he saw himself as superior to everyone else because of that.)
I got embarrassed by his joke, and instead of feeling impressed by how expensive everything looked, I started to ask myself questions like, "What's the point of buying a really expensive chair if nobody is even allowed to sit on it?" and "Is this really the type of stuff that the church is buying with our tithing money?"
I then started to wonder why there were parts of the temple that I wasn't allowed to see or even know about. I mean, the only money that I ever had as a kid was when my grandma would send me a birthday card with a 5 dollar bill in it, and I had to give 10 percent of that money (50 cents) to the church every year as "tithing". So it seemed unfair to me that even though I helped pay for the temple, it was being used for things that the church felt I had no business knowing anything about.
GETTING BAPTIZED
When it was time for me to do my 10 baptisms, they had me go into a "changing room" and put on an all-white outfit. Then I was taken by some temple workers into the "Baptismal Room" which had 12 life-sized ox statues that were all standing in a circle with the "baptismal font" (which looked like a giant bathtub) balanced on their backs.
It was all so strange, and looking back, it's easy to see why "baptism for the dead" ceremonies are often performed by young teenagers who don't really know what is going on, and who are just so amazed by how extravagant everything looks that they don't doubt that they are in a "holy place".
"Brother Smith" was going to be baptizing me, and he was standing in the middle of the baptismal font and motioning for me to enter the water. So I got in the water (which was up to my chest) and my heart immediately started pounding out of control due to how scared I was that I was about to go underwater and couldn't swim.
I managed to wade over to "Brother Smith" and he grabbed my wrist with one hand while raising his other hand in the air, and he said the following prayer...
"Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you for and on behalf of "Frederick Cooper", who is dead, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
He then attempted to lower me backward into the water, but as soon as I felt the water touch the back of my head, I freaked out and started screaming! (And I even pushed "Brother Smith" away from me right before he could put my head underwater!)
According to the temple rules, a baptism doesn't count unless your ENTIRE body goes underwater. (And even if one hair on your head doesn't go completely underwater, you will have to do the baptism over again.) So we were definitely going to have to do it over again.
"Brother Smith" was very upset at me, so he grabbed my wrist again, but this time he squeezed it kind of hard, and with an angry whisper he told me, "This is the Lord's water! Be still!" So I apologized and told him it wouldn't happen again.
He then repeated the prayer and went to lower me underwater again, but I freaked out as soon as my head was about to go underwater, and I messed up the second attempt too.
Then I messed up the third and fourth attempts as well because I was simply too nervous about going underwater.
I then started to think to myself that the spirit of this "Frederick Cooper" guy who I was getting baptized for was probably cringing in the background as he was watching all of this. (I mean, his eternal fate was literally depending on this, and even though I was his "hero", I wasn't acting very "heroic" as I tried to save him, and I imagined that even if I did end up saving him that day it would probably be super awkward anytime we ran into each other in heaven.)
"Brother Smith" then made a 5th attempt to baptize me, but this time he was so frustrated with me that as soon as he finished the prayer, he forcefully pushed me down into the water against my will, and he held me down as I kicked and screamed underwater.
And because my whole body technically went underwater, it meant that the baptism was "official", and that I had officially saved this dead guy I didn't even know named "Frederick Cooper".
But as soon as "Brother Smith" finally lifted me back up and out of the water, I had water in my nose, in my eyes, in my ears, and even in my mouth, and I was coughing up water so bad that I accidentally threw up in the water. (Which resulted in them having to cancel the over 100 other baptisms that were scheduled to happen that day, just so they could drain, sanitize, and refill the large baptismal font!)
LOSING MY RELIGION
I felt so embarrassed about what I had done, that even though I was normally kind of fearful of the thought that God might not exist and that religion might be made up, I actually started to take some comfort in the thought that maybe when I died nothing would happen and I wouldn't have to face an angry God and be judged for this.
I also started to take comfort in the thought that maybe ghosts weren't real, and that maybe there weren't really over 100 ghosts in the room who were all mad at me because I just caused their baptisms to be canceled.
Because we weren't able to do the rest of the baptisms and because the temple workers were so upset, we had to leave the temple early, so me and the other teenage boys from my church had to go sit in the lobby of the temple while "Brother Smith" filled out some paperwork at the front desk and was apologizing to the staff for my rude behavior.
But then there was a sudden and loud commotion, and a bunch of temple workers started running into the temple bathrooms.
The toilets in the temple were overflowing, and there was so much water that it started flooding into the hallway. (And the smell was horrible!)
To make matters worse, the temple workers said that it was all my fault. So I asked them how it was my fault, and they said that the excess water that was coming out of the toilets was due to the "baptismal font" that I threw up in having to suddenly be drained unexpectedly and causing the plumbing to back up and overflow!
At that point, I actually started to worry that I might go to hell for all of the damage that I had caused that day to the "Holy Temple"!
As I watched the overflowing toilet water that was pouring into the hallway (and ruining the expensive carpet that probably cost more than my parent's house) I felt such an overwhelming sense of shame, unworthiness, and doom come over me that I didn't think that I would ever be able to smile or feel good again...
Then it started to smell so bad in the "Holy Temple" that everyone had to cover their noses.
But then one of the teenage boys who was sitting next to me start to laugh and I thought to myself, "How could anyone laugh at a time like this?" then the laughing boy looked over at the smelly overflowing bathroom, and then he leaned up to my ear and jokingly and whispered, "HOLY SHIT!" and I immediately burst out laughing so hard that all of the anxiety and depression that I was feeling instantly went away!
I then had the following "epiphany" at the temple...
I could either go on believing that the church was true. (And spend the rest of my life worrying about "Judgement Day".) Or I could view the church as one big joke. (And spend the rest of my life laughing about it.) And after all of the strange things that I had seen that day, I simply could no longer be a believer.
And all it took was a little sacrilegious joke to get me to see the light.
GOING HOME
When we left the temple, we had a long drive back home, and I was dreading going back.
All I wanted to do was be an artist someday, but my parents wanted me to be a farmer for the rest of my life and take over the family farm when they died. "Brother Smith" wanted me to go on a mission for the church even though I no longer even believed in it. And my High School principal wanted me to go to college just to make himself look good.
As we were driving home, we stopped at a gas station in a crowded city to get some gas and "Brother Smith" went inside to pay for it.
As I was sitting in the van waiting for "Brother Smith" to return, I noticed a bunch of "HELP WANTED" signs posted on buildings, and I joked to myself that maybe I could just get out of the van, find a job, find an apartment, and start drawing in my free time. But then I thought to myself that because I had just turned 18 and because I had my I.D. with me since I needed it to get in the temple, I technically would be allowed to do that.
A voice in my head immediately tried to tell me that I could never live in a big city due to all of the social phobias that I had. But then another voice told me that this might be my only chance of escaping the life that everyone (except me) wanted for me.
So I seriously started to think about it, and I realized that I had to make a decision fast because "Brother Smith" would be coming back in just a minute or two. So I thought about it for maybe 10 seconds and then I got out of the van, and I took off running away from home, away from the church, and away from school!
And although I was no longer "religious", I couldn't help but feel that I wasn't alone and that there was someone or something following me and guiding me toward my destiny.
MORE EMBARRASSING STORIES