Good Thing Methodists Don't Have To Go To Confession

It's been a busy week at work and it all ended last night with a roast of my friend, Blake, who is leaving for grad school at Texas A&M. We had such a good time making fun of him; and each other, since every good roast leaves everybody with a slight sting.

Since Blake is a huge fan of my cake balls, I made sure to have plenty on hand. Which meant a mid-week trip to the grocery store. I am not a big fan of these. I try to never go during the week if I can help it because I was not blessed with very much patience and I think we can all agree that there are some efficiency problems with grocery stores. But that's another post for another day.

The place was packed, of course, so I grabbed an US Magazine while I was waiting in the Line That Never Ends for my turn. I was probably 10 pages into it when I heard a familiar voice say, "Anything good in there?" When I looked up it was my pastor from church.

Busted.

I felt like a teenager caught with alcohol. There is just no recovering from that. There I was reading gossip in plain sight.

I quickly closed the magazine and chatted with her while we waited to check out. As we stood there talking I felt like I might as well have been standing there without my pants on. I started to feel hot. I think I even started sweating a little bit. If I could have melted into the floor, I would have.

I was scanning my brain to justify my action. Gossip magazines aren't called out in the 10 Commandments. At least I'm not committing a cardinal sin RIGHT HERE IN PUBLIC. Except, I am pretty sure the Bible mentions gossip in Leviticus. But!! that is more about spreading gossip, not reading it. So as long as I don't discuss what I am reading, I should be covered.

And just as I rationalized my sin the Lord had mercy on me and it was my turn to check out. I smiled and told her I would see her on Sunday and then left as quickly as possible. With my tail between my legs.

As I left I thought of some other things I could have said:

• "What?! This isn't Good Housekeeping?!? That's what I meant to grab."
• "I was just looking for the address for the publisher so I could write them and tell them not so spread such terrible gossip! Don't they know it is a sin?!"
• "It wasn't me! I was dead at the time."
• "Oh, you must have mistaken me for my twin sister. She is the good one in the family."

I'm sure she would have totally bought any one of those lines.