I would like to preface the story below by saying I don't condone my youthful actions nor do I think it's necessarily a brilliant idea to sneak liquor into the middle of an evangelical Christmas church service.
However in high school I had the pleasure of doing just that. I was forced to go to the Christmas Eve service by my parents. In an act of rebellion, I spent the time before the service at a friend's house drinking a bottle of Hot Damn. Halfway through the bottle, I cajoled my friend to bring the Hot Damn and come with me.
We arrived late. The smart thing would have been to leave the Hot Damn in the car and try to sober up. Being beyond good decisions and having an empty flask, I came up with the following plan: We'd sneak into the back of church, sit in one of the empty pews and discreetly take a nip here or there.
This is not how things went. First though, a couple things about this church:
It sits on Nall in the middle of Prairie Village and, in addition to
being full of evangelicals, it's full of uptight, boring, Johnson County
evangelicals. The type who drink grape juice instead of wine at communion. They
don't take kindly to alcohol, especially drinking in church.
When my friend and I tried to sneak in, the congregation was in the
middle of a prayer and dead-quiet. Ushers are supposed to stop people
like me from entering in the middle of prayers but for some reason
there was no usher at the door and several rows of people turned around
to see who was disturbing the prayer.
The service was packed. All the pews are
chock-full. So there was no sitting
inconspicuously alone in the back. My friend and I wedged next to some
nice family that was already wedged in themselves.
At this point, I was ready to give up on drinking but after a couple of
minutes my friend started nudging me. Not being the religious type, he
had come to drink in church and he wasn't going to take no for an
answer. I whispered to him that it was in my coat pocket closest to him
and he could grab it. Sure enough, he grabbed it and while bending as far down as he could in the pew, took a
sip.
It was pretty obvious. He took another sip and sat back upright. Nobody
said anything. Looking back, I realize that the social mores of churches are so strong
that people will do anything not to rock the boat. I wasn't
thinking that at the time. I was just thinking, Holy shit! We're
drinking at church. Not being as carefree as my friend, I waited for the
perfect opportunity to slip out the flask. For some reason, churches
are constantly asking their members to stand and then to sit back down.
At one of these standing/sitting junctures I took a swig. Forgive me Jesus.
Not wanting to press our luck, I took only one more drink throughout the
service. My friend also got jittery. At one point, he took the flask
into his coat and got up to go the restroom. Except he hadn't been
standing for a while and when he stood, the alcohol rushed to his head
and he leaned into the pew in front of us to catch his balance. He
immediately apologized, but from the people's faces I could tell they
smelled or noticed something funny. Making me more paranoid. I was beginning to think this was a bad
idea and hoped my friend wouldn't make a scene. He came back from the
restroom and when he put the flask in my pocket I could tell it was
nearly empty.
By this time, it was near the end of the service. Every year, Christmas
service ends the same. Everyone takes a candle and one person lights
another candle and so on and we all stand holding candles and singing
"Silent Night." Surprisingly, the candle lighting went smoothly. But then it was time for the singing. My friend started singing obnoxiously, enjoying his
drunken sing-a-long. I turned to tell him to stop. When I turned, though,
the hot wax from the candle dripped onto my
hand. This shocked me enough that I was guilty of the biggest
Christmas service sin: dropping the candle!
Together, my friend and I sounded like SIIIIILEEEENTT NIGHHHHTTTTT! WHOOOOOOOLLLYYY NIIIGHHHTTT. SHIT!
Some people glared but nobody said anything. Gotta love
those strict unwritten rules. Fortunately, the song ended without
any more incidents and people started leaving. My friend wanted to go say
hello to my parents but, having enough comedy for one night, I convinced
him that we should get the hell out of there.
I was so afraid my parents had seen us or suspected something. When I
came home that night, I made sure it was well after my parents' bedtime. Christmas morning, I was dreading facing them at the tree. Eventually, I did. My mom mentioned she saw me come in to church but that
she was disappointed I didn't sit with them. I mumbled some excuse but
then she dropped the following bombshell: "Did you know you were sitting
right next to the So-and-So family?"
Fuck! We sat next to a family my mom knew! I meekly asked if they'd said
anything about me but fortunately she replied, "I didn't have a chance
to talk to them." I could tell there was no
ulterior motive and the conversation moved on. Thus, I got away
with drinking at church. -- Owen Morris
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This made me chuckle and I have since been trying to figure out which church on Nall it must have been and can only figure Hillcrest Covenant. Try this at a Catholic church - no one would much notice.
you sound like the type degenerate that couldn't actually get laid in high school so you had to resort to stuff like this to get your rocks off!! "yeah, we're cool man, we're drinking in church. maybe the girls will like me NOW..whoooooo!!"
Oh I thought it was home made egg nog that basically just turned into a cup of Jack Daniels. But what would I know?
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