church roaches

Something remarkable happened to me yesterday at church.

I arrived at Heritage at 7 am geared up for 3 services of guitar playing. One of the nice things about the Sundays I play guitar is that I get there early enough to get a good parking spot. Sure, when I arrive, it’s still dark out, and I end up having to spend about 6 hours at Heritage, but sometimes parking is hard to find.

Anyway, I parked my car and left it unlocked–it’s certainly not a nice car, and there really isn’t anything nice in it either, and of course, I was at church (in Westerville; of all places). All this to point out that saying I should have locked my car is completely unreasonable.

Church happened; I played my three services, drank my weight in coffee, and reinforced the calluses on the finger tips of my left hand, then I packed my stuff up and stumbled out to my car (hungry and quivering from the caffeine). I needed to get home fast and change for work–it was going to be a long day.

After throwing my guitar and briefcase full of pedals in my backseat, I opened the front door of my car and stopped cold.

There before my eyes, lying wrapped gloriously in a plastic sandwich bag, which merely heightened the contents’ illicit nature, were 3 handrolled cigarettes filled with something. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything that looked more illegal. To be honest I’m too sheltered to be able to tell the difference between weed and regular tobacco, and at the time I didn’t really want to investigate too deeply.

After contemplating thowing my contraband out (before I left the safety of the church parking lot), I decided to risk driving home with my stash in the hopes that the combined knowledge of my roommates would help me decipher the mystery of the home-made cancer sticks.

If worst came to worst, I could just smoke them and see what happened to my body.

That night at work I received a voicemail from an unrecognized number.

“Tim, it’s Alan,” came Files’ unmistakable voice. “Did you get my Christmas present, that I left this morning, in your car, on your seat? HANDROLLED CIGARETTES, Clint Eastwood style…yeah!”

The mystery was solved.

Funny thing is, Alan was actually the first person I thought of calling (but I didn’t have his latest number). He and I used to have a running joke/contest regarding what we called the “See who can find drugs in Westerville the fastest.” I was going to claim my victory and tell him that at this church we really do “worship the Lord, most (ly) high.”