One at a Time

I once read somewhere that any man can satisfy a million women once, but only a real man can satisfy one woman a million ways for a lifetime. Which brings me to Lent.

A segue? What's a segue?

As I was saying, it's the time of year when good Catholic boys like myself use the Season of Lent to prepare ourselves for Easter by giving up something. Some opt to use Lent as a condensed Weight Watchers program by giving up cookies, chocolate, or some form of sugar or fat. Others choose a higher path and use Lent as a form of therapy by giving up a bad habit, one that has plagued them for many years and by sheer declaration that "I will give up ___________ for Lent" somehow ceases to be an issue. Examples include "I will not bite my finger nails", "I will not bite my sister", or "I will stop telling people to bite me".

With the best of intentions, these Lenten sacrifices will begin with great spirit. And like New Year's resolutions, most will fall flat in their promises by day three. "Oh well...I tried."

While I of course have my own ideas about what I might be giving up for Lent this year, I will choose to keep them to myself. First and foremost because, as any great motivational speaker will tell you, you should NOT write down your goals, lest you should be apt to look upon them daily and suffer the wrath and admonishment of family and friends who might seek to remind you of your failures and then encourage you back on the path of discipline and righteousness. (Yes I'm using more eloquent words here. I'm trying to sound lofty.) Like your feelings, it's important to keep your goals bottled up inside of you so that you can put on a proper face of hypocrisy, pretending to be on the path of success while wagging your finger at the rest of the world. That's what we are called to do in the service of the Lord.

No, I choose not to suffer the wrath of my family and friends or, even worse, my inner conscience. Bleeaahhhh!  Who wants to feel bad about themselves for making bad choices? But lest you should feel uninspired by my inspirational Lenten reflection, I will offer up a small compromise. Sure, anyone can attempt to sacrifice one habit or dessert for forty days and nights. After all, you only really have to last three or four days before receiving a pat on the back and a "Hey, you gave it your best shot, so let's order the double fudge ten-layer cake with chocolate ice cream to wash down our pizza, french fries and the other stuff we gave up for Lent."

To offer something useful, I give to you a list of forty days (and nights) of sacrifices that I will attempt. No, not all forty for forty days. I don't want to risk failure. Again, there's the whole "feeling bad about yourself" thing. I'll just take each one for a day. It may not be what you initially sought in this discussion of Lenten goals, but perhaps doing something similar will make you the envy of your friends.  More so, it will give you a basis to take pause and wag your finger at others for the good that you are doing in the world. Just be sure to speak of your accomplishments loudly. Humility is, after all, for the modest.

1.) I will actually put money in the collection plate at church instead of waving both hands over it as it goes by to make it look like I put money in there.
2.) I will not look with judgment at the people who show up late to church on Sunday. I will wait to talk about them in the car.
3.) I will not express road rage while behind the wheel. Instead I will take it out on the teenage cashier at the grocery store when she asks me, "So how are you today?" with her usual insincerity.
4.) I will not go into a raging fit when I am walking down the aisle of a grocery store and the lady in front of me stops all of a sudden because it never occurred to her until that very moment that maybe she does in fact need a box of the Wheat Thins that are on the buy-one-get-one-free list even though it's been on sale for the last five days, and after all SHE IS THE ONLY ONE SHOPPING RIGHT NOW AND NOBODY ELSE NEEDS TO GET AROUND HER SO THAT...Okay, moving on.
6.) I will not roll my eyes at my spouse when she firmly disagrees that the toilet paper should be placed with the roll releasing over instead of under. Instead I will wait until she leaves and change it, but I still won't roll my eyes while doing it.
7.) I will not take the last slice of pizza from the Papa John's box. I will offer it up to my wife, thereby giving her the chance to offer it to me. (Grace for her, grace for me.) Wanting to be gracious, I will of course accept.
7.) I will not drink coffee. I will drink only drink herbal tea and....HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Sorry, almost got that one out with a straight face.
9.) I will not get angry while watching "Wheel of Fortune" and yell things like "Great job, moron! Because everyone knows that when the puzzle board says "I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRAN_IS_O" the obvious thing to do is buy a vowel!" Next item!!!
10.) I mean seriously, you buy a vowel?!?! How do you dress yourself in the morning? You have over ten grand, two spaces left, one letter to call, and you buy a vowel?!?!
11.) I will not respond sarcastically with the question, "Really is that LITERALLY how bad it was?" when someone misuses the word "literally" as a way of expressing the enormity of a situation. ("I picked up this bag and it weighed literally a ton." Thank you, Hercules.)
12.) I will not ignore my wife and daughter while watching March Madness (except when the point deficit is less than 10 points and/or there are less than 10 minutes on the clock in either the first or second half of a game).
13.) I will not ignore my wife and daughter during the final round of the Masters (except when the final pair tees off at which point....Shhhh! No talking!)
14.) I will not eat any sugar unless it's in the form of fruit or some other "naturally-occurring" form. Okay, I'm already doing this on my diet. But for crying out loud if it will get my foot in the door of Heaven, then why not use it to my advantage? No, I can't actually eat pizza either. #7 was meant to make me look good in front of my wife. Stop nitpicking and just praise my efforts!
15.) I will not lose my patience when my daughter keeps saying "sixteen" instead of "fifteen" even though we just spent the last half-hour counting from one to eighteen and I'm pointing to the numbers on the page and I've said it twenty times already. It's right there on the paper! Look at the number! Are you looking at the paper? I said FIFteen, not SIXteen. Look at the paper, not at me! If you don't get this now, you can kiss Harvard good-b....Yes, dear, I know she's only three-and-a-half. You're missing the point. Who taught her to count like this?
19.) I will stop down-playing my efforts to eat healthier foods. Instead I will pat myself on the back with every bite (this also will help at the same time to dislodge the supplements that are the size of my fist) and then zealously tell everyone that they should be on this same diet because I've been on it for a month and really everyone loves nothing more than an overzealous dieter who thinks that everyone else should be on the same program they've been doing for less time than it takes to do a summer internship.
20.) Are you still reading this? Seriously? I figured by now you'd give up. I didn't really expect to list twenty more. If you've come this far, I guess I really owe you twenty more.
23.) I will stop checking Facebook every fifteen minutes because I have five piles of laundry to fold and I'll find any excuse not to touch it because once I do I will have to start cleaning the bathrooms, which are next on the list and my least favorite household duty.
25.) I will not do any yard work. I just hate it passionately. No other silver lining here. It's just evil work.
28.) When I come in from doing the yard work that I swore I wouldn't do, I promise not to mope around the house and mutter things like, "We're moving to a high-rise condo." (I reserve the right to resume doing this once Lent is over.)
32.) I will not cringe every time I hear a storm coming because I'm waiting for the roof to start leaking. I will worry more about the siding falling off because someone breathed on it the wrong way.
33.) I will not walk through the shopping mall and look with contempt upon the youth of today and think, "I weep for the future." In all fairness, some of them are undercover cops posing as teenagers and are just hoping to make a score. (Don't knock "21 Jump Street". It was a good show.)
34.) The next time I'm at the park with my daughter and an older kid is mean to her, I will not give the kid a dirty look or say anything mean. I will just slap the parents across the face and say, "Sorry...saw a mosquito. By the way, you're kid is a real pain in the..." As I was saying, I won't be mean.
35.) I will stop walking up to people randomly in stores and asking them, "Is the moon out yet?" and then upon dropping my drawers say, "How about now?" People just don't enjoy a good mooning anymore.
36.) I will stop using the cards and mailing labels that are sent to me by the FILL IN BLANK Missions. No, not because I haven't donated and I feel guilty. It's just that Ziggy labels aren't my style.
37.) I will not quietly insult those who disagree with my beliefs. I will simply pray that God will cure them of their ignorance. Should He be unable to do so, well then it's game on.
38.) Since it is Lent, I will eat a fish sandwich and french fries from McDonald's. Trust me...my wife and I watched "Super Size Me" last week. You have no idea how much of a sacrifice this is. Yes, they taste really good. The point is, I'm adding years to someone's life by taking one more of these meals out of circulation. And to the one whose life I save...maybe you...let me say, "You are welcome. And please pass me the Alka-Seltzer...and a cholesterol test."
39.) I will stop using the line, "Excuse me, I'm on my way to the gym" every day when I see a cute female. Mostly because my wife and daughter are no longer impressed when I say it. Also because our back bedroom hardly qualifies as a gym.
40.) I will not say anything sarcastic.

I can't speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure everyone (both people) reading this will be inspired to do more this Lenten Season. And if not, don't beat yourself up about it. That's what friends are for.