The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Down at the Little Church in the Ravine, our non-denominational chapel of praise here on the South End (which is apparently a hotbed of iniquity according to the Bible thumping Pastor Paul), the sermons lately have taken on a slightly political overtone. I guess with the IRS busy with fact checking the major corporate filings for errors or outright fraud, they really don’t have the time to question religious incursions into politics. Not that the Little Church in the Ravine would have much to worry about insofar as tax emptions go on their modest sanctuary, but nevertheless, it’s disheartening to us transgressors that we’ve become the object of that fine tabernacle’s scorn.

Even the school system has earned Pastor Paul’s righteous wrath, declaring them groomers of aberrant sexuality. Having been a school teacher myself for a brief time, this is disturbing to hear. I certainly didn’t groom my classes in sexual anything, kind of verboten then and I’m betting it is now. Except, of course, the classes here on the island. ‘Satan,’ Pastor Paul is happy to exhort his disciples in their hard metal folding chairs, ‘Satan is among us!’ I never like to hear that the Prince of Darkness is wandering the nettle fields out back, apparently in broad daylight, even in our elementary schools. According to Paul and the Book of Revelations, this was all foretold. Maybe, I guess, I should have read the book.

But of course Pastor Paul is breathing fire and brimstone about the books in the library too. Lucifer is everywhere, near as I can tell, even lurking around the Camano Library, offering tempting tomes that would lure the unwary into sinful and immoral wickedness. He’s pretty sure that this is how drag queens got their start. We don’t have a whole lot of drag queens down here, not even many transvestites. Got plenty of lesbians and gays, even a trans or two, but no drag queens. Yet. Pastor Paul is predicting a tidal wave of them before too long. Thanks to the schools and the library.

He wants the congregation to know that Evil is out there. Cannibalistic sexual predators in a D.C. pizza shop basement are only the tip of what’s coming if True Believers in the King James Bible don’t step up and confront the evildoers. Apathy won’t cut it! Drag shows and gay marriages are spreading. This is Hollywood’s doing. And it is sanctioned by one of the political parties which has sold its soul to the devil.

‘Wait a minute, Pastor!’ a lone voice from the back of the temple cries out. ‘You saying my party is Evil??’ Betty Lou asks. ‘I got a daughter up at Elger Bay Elementary and the only grooming they’re doing is maybe hair. There’s more grooming going on at Pampered Poodle than there is in that school, I can tell you that.’

Well, Pastor Paul told Betty Lou he would be more than happy to discuss this with her after services, but for now, he was trying to reach his flock, to warn them of the dangers within and without. Betty Lou shook her head, snatched up her purse and said, ‘Okay, Paul, I’ll go without.’ And stomped out the back door. Pastor Paul, unperturbed, suggested they all pray for Betty Lou’s eternal soul now that she was alone to wrestle with Beelzebub. I give the Devil about equal odds on that matchup.

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