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Burnett's Urban Etiquette

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Barnyard religion

Hmmm. Not sure how to make this believable, since the picture below me is kind of fuzzy. Nevertheless, can you guess what you're looking at? I mean other than the obvious - the back of a purple shirt-wearing human, a folding chair with a white piece of paper and a digital camera on it, a door slightly ajar, and a little black and white thing's face in a plate.


Give up? The little black and white thing is a pig. That's right, bacon, small bacon, but very real bacon, captured on my cell phone - thus the poor picture quality.

Anyway, Mrs. B and I decided to try to stave off heathendom this morning and went to church. We sit about 3/4 of the way back 'cause its right by the exit. Well, about halfway through the service we hear a commotion outside the sanctuary.

Later, as Mrs. B returned from one of the 278 bathroom breaks-per-day she's taken since becoming pregnant, she tells me "There's a pig out there." Naturally, I want to scold her and remind her that Homer Simpson would say people with voracious appetites need Jebus too.

But she quickly explains that she's not insulting large or hungry humans. She means there really is a pig in the hallway. Apparently it wandered into the parking lot and approached the open doors.

So the minister's wife and another woman ushered the pig inside, brought it something to eat and gave it a room to chill in while they tried to figure out what to do about it. On my own bathroom break a short time later I snapped the photo.

Why was a pig at church? That answer is about as readily available as why the chicken crossed the road or why that crossing was anyone's business.

There must be some sort of religious metaphor or simile here in church doors always being open and to everyone. I'm just too sober to figure it out.

I'd say "only in Miami," but in order for that cliche to work in this case, a gator would have had to come to church this morning.

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