Brothers wedding.
Last time I was in church was for my brothers wedding a couple of weeks ago. Introducing the last hymn, the minister said it was a Psalm set to a more modern song that some of us might know.

the first thing to enter my mind?

Wouldn't it be cool if it was set to Enter Sandman?

You know how it can be tough keeping a straight face in church?

Try keeping a straight face while singing and thinking about all the evil looks you'd have got if you did burst out laughing.

That should have been a Krypton Factor challenge...
(williamthebloody, Sat 3 Sep 2011, 13:45, Reply)

J-Team..
I used to go to 'J-Team' a Christian Latter Day Saints youth club. I was about 8 and only went cause my friends went too. I used to hide under the table with a boy there playing 'Go-Gos' (little plastic figures that you throw at eachother, big fad in the 90s) and stole biscuits from the kitchen. Also managed to steal a blue velvet stuffed fish from the 'loaves and fishes' playset - which I still have almost 20 years on! We used to talk about how we hated God, and Jesus was pathetic etc.etc. Generally we just were nasty little stubborn brats who wanted to go to youth club rather than a religious youth club. But hey ho.
I also sat through a Christening in my teens listening to 'kvlt' Norwegian black metal on my in-ear headphones. I regret that, as the guy who's kids were being christened is actually a really lovely bloke, and a few years later his wife died suddenly.
Unfortunately I don't seem to be much of a religious rebel!
( Bathory, Sat 3 Sep 2011, 12:56, Reply)

Such a respectable hobby
I used to do bellringing, the only two people I knew in the same group were a friend from school and her friend M who was by far the worst influence I had at that age (about 13). There were a few more ringers than bells so for each...tune? I forget what they're called? a couple of people had to sit out. We had access to the main church to take a seat on the pews as there wasn't much room in the bellringing room.

M decided she wanted a snack. So she broke into the communion cupboard and we snacked on the wafers and wine.

Then she washed the wafer crumbs off her hands and dried them on the altar cloth.
(GothicTechie, Sat 3 Sep 2011, 12:32, 7 replies)

My X's Boss
Was a religious bloke who when not preciding over sporting events in Scotland used to do religious events with Happy Clappy bands, some magic and some bible lessons, to be honest I wasn't paying much attention. I was there with the then misses so was supporting her boss (read making up the numbers) strangly enough in Glasgow were what school you goto tells everyone whay team you support and wither you went to church or chapel, numbers were not that high.

Oh this isn't interesting or funny and I didn't do anything rude.... meh
(BiggestNizzy your company name here pm for rates., Sat 3 Sep 2011, 10:49, 2 replies)

Not me, but...
Years ago, my driving instructor, Brian (for that was his proverbial) was going out with the landlady of a village pub. Yay for him, the spawny get. Anyway, late one Dec 24th evening, a particularly loud group of 'barely 18' punters finally left at kicking out time. Well, ejected really as they had tried their hardest to induce some sort of lock-in.
After 5 mins, they had buggered off and Brian was helping tidy up when he noticed a flickering outside. He looked out of the window and noticed a fire across the road in the churchyard.
"Bastard!" he thought and assumed the kids they had kicked out had decided to set something ablaze in spite. He grabbed a long hose and dragged it out of the pub across the narrow lane, shouting back to the landlady to "Phone the fire brigade!"
He started hosing down the fire, which he had caught quite early as it was still quite small. Just then, the church doors opened and the vicar was standing there along with a good dozen or so members of the Midnight Mass congregation, watching Brian suddenly realise that there were no arsonists after all and that he had in fact just extinguished and thoroughly soaked the Yule Log.

He wasn't very popular after that
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sat 3 Sep 2011, 10:44, 2 replies)

Not dirty but actually kinda nice.
This previous weekend i was in bergamo for my younger brothers wedding. Dont ask me how he pulled this off but it took meetings with too many preists to find one who would do the ceremony.

Half of the ceremony was traditional catholic in italian.
The other half was civil ceremony in english.
Brother is strict athiest.
His now wife is catholic.
They have a child who is now three.

Don diego of il sante de monte, you are a fucking legend.
(Nirmeth My ignore list is fucking huge. Hint., Sat 3 Sep 2011, 0:36, Reply)

if i believed in hell, i would be satans number 2
Dunblane cathedral. At the back next to the speudo stage,me and my then bf with the hot hot bummings. Gheyz lolz.
(Nirmeth My ignore list is fucking huge. Hint., Sat 3 Sep 2011, 0:13, 2 replies)

The least Christian christening in a while...
Mrs. Doom is the daughter of a former nun and trainee priest (clearly something went a bit wrong for God somewhere along the line there), and as such was raised Catholic. Furthermore, she has absolutely shedloads of family in Ireland. Owing to this we felt badgered / compelled to get our children christened over in Dublin, to keep that side of the family happy. The first mini-Doom, a few years back, went well enough, but this is the story of our second, William, one month ago today.

Owing to the epic journey from Porstmouth to Dublin by car, coupled with my job as a member of the teaching profession, we had to wait a while before it was convenient to make the trip over, thus William being able to crawl - quickly. Thankfully the priest didn't seem to mind having the alter ransacked by an eager 10mth old, bouncing about and giggling with what can only be described as a saloon-bar laugh, so we left him to it with the relatively small number of assembled family watching happily.

Then it comes to the bit where you make all sorts of promises - "Do you promise to look after this child to the best of your ability?" type stuff to which the parents and godparents drone a grudging "I do" in response. Or at least they would if they weren't, as we discovered at that moment ALL atheists. Any question concerning God in any way shape or form is met with sullen silence, the priest reluctantly saying "I do" on our behalf. Feeling a little shamed by this it comes to the bit where the bouncing giggle-bomb has to be clothed in a white garment, 'wrapped' in Jesus according to the words of the priest.

Jesus, in this instance, was played by a crisp, white, hotel towel, hastily shoved into a bag at the last moment before heading off for church. We had to hand Jesus back to the hotel, so I strongly suspect that by the time of writing, Jesus has been washed several times and used to dry the genitals of various sextagenarian tourists and sales clones.

My favourite sight of the whole event though was afterwards when, investigating the church while all the paperwork was being done, my father in law found a switch on the wall. No-one can resist an unmarked switch... no-one. An old lady was visitng the grotto depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing at Lourdes, and, as she looked at this very tacky, life-size diorama, the BVM's halo began to intermittently switch on and off. "Ahhh, it must be broken, it doesn't seem to do anything!" says father in law and wanders off to sabbotage something else.

Very surreal experience, being in church... Can't say I'd recommend it...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Fri 2 Sep 2011, 23:45, 1 reply)

2009 South Korea
I had just completed an epic motorbike journey across Russia, central Asia and Mongolia. And I had gotten off the ferry from Vladivostok to Sokcho.

I made it to Seoul 5 days later.

While there I simply binged out to put the weight back on for 5 weeks. I then met a german bloke called Simon. It was a sunday... we were bored.... Somebody said lets go to Church...

We were still buzzing drunk from the night before where we'd been drinking till 8am.

So we went to Church Korean, the English Congregation filled with ESL types. There was even a famous Korean pop star who went there. Korean style is funny as in odd Simon and I were total frauds, we did not bring bibles and went to watch the Karaoke esq hymms sung. Really really toasted still and stinking of Soju and beer. The pastor looked very angry at us as Simon proceeded ask stupid question and 'test the faith' of the pastor with logical if god is so.... type questions.

The pastor got very very angry... we could see his lip quivering at the anger. We watched a few blessings and Simon handed me a beer. Even I was a what the hell! at this....

We sat through the service and ironically even though we were both atheist frauds we were the only people to put money on the donation plate. More blessings which felt creepy.... I thought if they touched me I would burst into flames.

We drifted out and went back to the hostel. Simon left for a week and came back Saturday night....... joined by a Spanish guy called Jesus who ironically looked a lot like the classical blue eyed long hair Jesus..... we drank a LOT again and Simon suddenly was very very sober and said I have to apologise to the pastor....

Simon, Jesus and I went to the church again.... and acted all nice and apologetic even crying..... this was totally out of charactor for him. He sat through the service completely silent and at the end when people were gathering, he introduced Jesus to everybody.......

This is my friend Jesus H Christ.... (Jesus spoke neither English or Korean) open eyed shock everywhere. Which felt like it was on the verge of a punch up..... Simon saved the day by saying I mean Christie... Polite Korean society did not allow them to beat us to death. and they accepted this through clenched teeth.... A German guy didn't buy it and wasn't a polite Korean ignore it type and confronted Simon in the lobby. He simply nutted Simon and knocked him out cold..

I left Korea for China later that day....
(kennichi, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 23:21, 2 replies)

I was backpacking in rome years ago, and fell in with some knockabout fellow aussies staying at the same cheap hotel by the station
we spent a sunny day drinking beers, and playing kick to kick ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ONhoWu-ATU for those who don't know what I'm talking about)on the streets of Rome with one bloke who was dragging a footy around the world with him. By the afternoon we were at St Peters in the Vatican. We entered the vast church and I knew what was coming. The guy with footy, I've forgotten his name but he barracked for North, let's call him Dave, peeled off a good 20m, pulled out the sherrin, and fired in a drop punt back at us. I marked it (caught it), but before I could send it back to him a guy in what looked like a clown suit grabbed me. About a 100 eyes were on us, tourist, nuns, the lot. Dave wandered up and started arguing with the guard to give them his footy back. More guards arrived, but these ones had machine guns. These more paranoid days they would probably have prosecuted us, but instead they argued amongst themselves in Italian before marching us to the front door and pointing at us to fuck off. They gave us the footy back
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 21:14, 4 replies)

I once got a job
cleaning up at a crematorium. The furnace had malfunctioned and spread soot all over the place, and yours truly had to scrub off other peoples loved ones off the walls. They had already fixed the blocked vents or whatever the problem was, so while I was there they sent two dearly departed to their final rest. Also I learned one thing, not everything of you get incinerated at this procedure. The caretaker at this particular crematorium actually had a bucket where he collected the leftover bones, for further processing in a big fucking grinder. Just something to think about if you are considering a fiery last goodbye...
(Rebooted Frazer Smoothly scrolling since, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 20:47, 9 replies)

Atheists aren't perfect
just evolved.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 20:38, 25 replies)

Get your tits out for Jesus
A long time ago, I was a practising Left Footer. LittleScars needed dunking, so I asked if we could have her done on Easter Sunday.

Off to the church in our best kit, which meant in MrsScars case a rather snugly fitted dress with buttons down the front.

About half way though LittleScars began her "Food! Food! FOOOOD!" routine, very loudly as most 10-week olds do.

So MrsScars tried to discreetly assuage the ravenous infant.

No. The whole front of the dress came open, milk sprayed over me, LittleScars and the carpet. The altarboy directly across from us first goggled and then assumed an odd, pained semi-crouching posture.

The priest merely flicked an eyebrow; afterwards he told me it was nothing compared to the 3 year old who shoved up the blouse and latched on when his Mum was at communion the week before.

/coat /Hull
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 20:28, Reply)

Mistaken identity
Many years ago I was sailing around the West Coast of Scotland and had the misfortune to get something small and pointy stuck in my eye while visiting Gigha. No doctor on the island, but there was a resident nurse and I was sent off to find her in the church, where she was getting the flowers ready.

I went into the church, looked around and saw nobody. Then I realised she was in the vestry. It was one of these awkward situations when you know your going to give someone a shock and hope it will elicit a mere fart of surprise and not a full on coronary.

Well, it was somewhere in between. As the nurse emerged from the vestry I coughed, politely. She shrieked and then shouted, very loudly, "JESUS."

A short pause, and she recovered with style.

"No. It's not Jesus. How can I help you?"
(ubergeekian, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 19:47, 2 replies)

Red-carded
I confess it ... I was an altar boy. Never got fiddled and never got fucked. Not a hint of it in fact. I was once carrying the crucifix in a procession, two acolytes behind me and had my hair set alight but that's another story. Same church, same foul-tempered chain-smoking whisky-priest and there were six or eight of us on the altar one Saturday morning for 'altar-boy practice'. Amongst the altar-boy cohort was a nephew of a famously bolshie priest with a strongly anti-Vatican stance on contraception. (He later left the priesthood, get married, had some kids and went on to become a famous author who wrote a well-received TV series too.)
Five minutes into the service (bound to get the back up of Fr. Grumpycunt) in walks the gangling frame of the Republic of Ireland and Spurs goalkeeper Pat Jennings... one of our childhood heroes - a regular on Sundays in a crowded church but almost the only member of the congregation. Maybe saying a few "Hail Maries" before a trip to Highbury? Consternation amongst the gaggle of altar-boys. Most of us settled down fairly quickly but not the die-hard Spurs fan nephew in question who continued to chatter to his neighbour excitedly. At this point the priest stopped the service and boomed: "D_________! Get off this altar NOW and NEVER come back!"
It wasn't until many years later that I worked out that the (perceived) sins of the uncle were being visited on the hapless nephew.
I'm better now. No longer believe and do useful things with my Sundays off.
Peace & love boys 'n' girls!
(Roger Darce sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 19:16, 1 reply)

A close friend had died
We went to his funeral in the local Catholic church and most of us were unfamiliar with the procedure. We were at the back and couldn't see properly, but there seemed to be a lot of messing around with what sounded like crockery. The woman next to me muttered "Is he doing the washing up?"

And I thought, oh dear, here we go. Giggling during weddings is one thing (my sister and I had always done that and usually had to be separated) but a funeral - oh no....

I kept my cool until the priest (who had a foreign dialect of some kind) said "Piss be with you" and I gave an involuntary snigger. Several devout Catholics glared in my direction, and I didn't blame them.

The thing is, I'm not a teenager. How much more undignified is it to be a mad old lady giggling in church? During a funeral, ffs? The only thing that sustained me and helped me forgive myself was that the deceased would have LOVED it and would have doubtless have laughed his socks off.
(grumpy old ratbag, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 19:15, Reply)

I was best man,
And was in charge of the rings. My mate's wife has family over the world, and with one of them being a vicar, (perhaps, could have been a bishop for all I knew) he was to officiate the wedding. All very nice, till he asked me if I had the rings.
"No!" I yelped, remembering they were still in the boot of my car. Sadly, before my brain kicked in, I added, "Oh Christ!"
There was a deep silence, fortunately only for a second, one that felt longer to me.
The vicar didn't bat an eyelid, good thing too, I swear his eyes turned red, and calmly replied,
"Don't worry, he'll be here."
I just ran to the car, probably the only thing which hid my mortification.
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 18:49, Reply)

I've caught fire in St. Paul's Cathedral
I've been waiting for years to tell B3ta this story... ~wavy lines~

Back when Galemp was about eight years old, he and his parents toured London at Christmastime. This being the early '90s I was lovingly bundled in a huge, poofy, neon yellow ski jacket to keep warm. Wandering about the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, and so on, we eventually came to St. Paul's.

I was enthralled by the space, the echoes, the windows, and especially by the votive candles. I had had a great-aunt who had recently died, and with my parents' blessing dropped my 20p in the box and dutifully lit a candle, placing it with a smile on the highest row of the tiered rack. This highest row, naturally, being at the back, with four other rows of candles under my outstretched arm.

Shortly thereafter the entire right side of my poofy winter ski coat was engulfed in flames, whereupon I was beset on all sides by persons bludgeoning me with whatever was at hand. I continued to wear that jacket for the rest of the trip and, indeed, for the rest of the winter, as a souvenier of my outstanding judgement.
(Galemp makes FreeSpace better, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:59, 1 reply)

Foot in mouth incident
At the funeral of a family friend, as we were leaving the church, I said loudly but to no-one in particular, "That's odd, it smells like someone's having a barbecue round here."

Then I remembered it was a cremation.
( smutch, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:54, Reply)

Whiter than white
I grew up a catholic and was an altar boy until I was 17. My last Christmas as an altar boy was pretty memorable. I'd spent Christmas Eve in the pub with my mates before going to church to do my duty on Midnight Mass. I was totally slaughtered, but I'm not sure the priest noticed because I suspect he was rather sloshed too. Probably just as well, cos I kept cocking up, dropping stuff, ringing the bell at the wrong time etc. Halfway through the service, I needed to relieve myself, but it was a crucial moment so I couldn't leave the altar. So I just went in my jeans. That's the benefit of wearing a cassock over your clothes - no one can see the massive damp patch in your crotch.
( smutch, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:49, 12 replies)

Santitttiago da Compostela
For YEARS I wanted to go to Santiago da Compostela and see the swinging of the giant incense burner (a tradition that started because apparently pilgrims are very whiffy). There's a bit at the end where a gang of specially-trained ninja monks wrestles the whale-sized censer to a halt, which is waay coool - I'd seen it on telly.

So I was delighted that when we got there the ceremony was just starting, AND we got a front row view. Perfect line of sight, movie camera at the ready.

A friendly wizened pilgrim next to me started explaining the proceedings, obviously keen that I shouldn't miss the way cool bit at the end. So while avidly watching the show he was also reaching out with a 'waitforit ... waitforit' sort of gesture at me - where I was precariously standing between a crowd of pilgrims and a huge brass swinging thing.

Which is how I ended up filming the famous incense ceremony at Santiago da Compostela with a set of octogenarian fingers resting gently on my left nipple.
( Bootsthealchemist is barred from the Masterchef Facebook page, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:34, 1 reply)

Never assume
Back in high school the girl I was dating talked me into going to bible study classes with her. During one of the classes we watched a video of "the miracle of medjugorje" which was evidently when an apparition of The Virgin Mary came down to Yugoslavia and talked to some kids. The whole video was this fawning, awful mess and I was not buying any of it.

As the credits were rolling and the study group leader turned the lights on I muttered something like "what a load of bullshit" assuming that the other teens in the room were as cynical and skeptical as myself. I turned around and about half of the people in the room had been moved to tears by what they had been watching.

I was politely asked to leave and not come back.
(local_weather rarely posts anything, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:25, Reply)

There was this church inside the school...
Whose confessional was weekly used by yours truly to exercise my bowel muscles. I did not stop because they found out, but rather, some days later, when I took a bird to have a nice time around there, they left that huge pile of shit with a nice message about I now having to shit over my own shit.

Oh, and I offered some indian gods a huge vomit while wandering totally drunk in singapore. And a bottle of Tiger beer. And some pee.
(surak, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 17:19, 7 replies)

I once went to a Hindu wedding
It took place in a large hall in a Hindu temple, with a stage. My good friend the groom and the bride together with the officiating cleric were up on the stage, dressed in the most outlandish fashion including the first pair of actual, real-life, genuine shoes-that-curl-into-a-spiral-at-the-tip that I'd ever seen.

My friends & I all arrived together and we discovered to our that our good friend, the groom, had had us all labelled "honoured guests of the groom" which meant we were kind of the equivalent of the best man en masse and although we took no part in the ceremony, we did get to sit right at the front of the hall, up with the parents of the wedded parties. Seeing as none of us was religious, let alone Hindu, and we were all white we felt genuinely embarrassed that we might be taking the best seats before people who might, well, be more interested in the whole proceedings. We were just there to support our friend and for the curry (which was excellent).

As things got underway, once we'd all had a good giggle at the shoes, it dawned on us that this wasn't going to be the most interesting spectacle ever. It was - unsurprisingly when you think about it - conducted entirely in Hindi, which none of us spoke. So we sat and shuffled our feet a little as the mums and dads next to us got all teary-eyed over the wedding of their darling children.

After a little longer it dawned on us that there were relatively few similarities to the Christian-model weddings that we were used to. One major point of difference was speed. This one went on.

And on.

(in a language none of us understood)

And on.

We grew restless. We grew bored. We began the early stages of nicotine withdrawal. Our legs cramped. Our brains began to turn to jelly. But out of a profound respect for a culture to which we were foreign and which had welcomed us with open arms, and for those parents we were sharing a table with and who were clearly wholly absorbed in the ceremony before them, we endured stoically and in silence.

It was awful.

Eventually, it ended. There was no reception afterwards in the traditional sense (no alcohol, you see) but people hung around and chatted. We went outside for a cigarette. And shortly we were joined by the newly married husband who'd been gasping for a fag as much as we had.

"Why?" we cried "Why did you not warn us in advance?"

"Does go on a bit, doesn't it" he admitted. "But then .. " and a sly grin began to spread across his face ".. if you're not sat at the front, it's considered acceptable to chat amongst yourselves, or even leave the room for a while if you want to."

"But you listed us as honoured guests!" we cried "We couldn't do that".

"No" he said, grinning like a fucking Cheshire cat "You couldn't"

He was a lucky man not to have been beaten to a pulp on his own wedding day, by his own "honoured guests".
(MattDP (Squiggle), Fri 2 Sep 2011, 16:57, 2 replies)

I went to a Catholic school
But it was really one of those nominally Catholic schools that took on the RC prefix sometime in the 60s, probably as an attempt to keep brown people out.

By my time it was hard to tell the difference between us and any other non-denominational, bog-standard comprehensive. There were a few masses, a little more overtly religious stuff in the assemblies than most schools, but by-and-large the staff and pupils were Godless heathens, or at least, pretty secular.

In fact, it was my RE teacher who turned me on to atheism. He was a self-professed Catholic himself, but his various answers to Life's Big Questions (I could never decide if they were egregiously stupid or ingeniously subversive) made it clear to me that nobody with a faith could possibly be described as a rational person.

Here's an example- one day he was discussing baptism in other cultures, and he got talking about those who criticise Catholics for baptizing infants (freedom of choice etc.). His defence of the Catholic way was to suggest that people who don't raise their children to share their faith are like "the idiots who let their kids pick their own football team to support". As I say, I could never work out if he was trying to point out the arbitrary and superficial nature of organised religion, or if he was actually just an idiot.

Anyway.

One day a Bishop arrived. He had an Italian accent and turned up in full costume with an entourage. I had no idea who he was, and from the sheepish reactions of the staff, neither did they. The pupils had had no warning of this, and I suspect that it had been sprung on the school. So the headmaster summons the whole school into the hall for an epic, sprawling, endless mass that seemed to go on for fucking ever.

By an hour or two in, most pupils were so bored that we had lost all sense of fake-civility and were beginning to chatter, giggle, pass notes, and generally pushed our luck to stave off boredom. Suddenly, the Bishop stopped the sermon, banged his fist on the table, and began ranting about how we were the worst, most awful people he had ever encountered. He was livid with rage, shouting, hurling insults, with us stunned into silence. The teachers looked like they wanted the ground to swallow them up - the headmaster just sat there with his head in his hands.

But we weren't even half way through - and unfortunately, the rigorous bollocking we had all just received had heightened the tension in the room, to the point where not giggling at the slightest thing had become a herculean effort. So there were 2000 odd children, all trying their darnedest not to laugh, with a ridiculously dressed, red-faced old man, with this crazy accent, condemning us all to a hell that hardly any of us actually believed in.

To make matters worse, some of us were carbuncular teenagers of the male variety, and nearly every phrase we heard was to our ears crammed full of the most lurid unintentional double entendres imaginable. It was unbearable. I remember at one point during a hymn I was actually lying on the floor underneath my seat, rolling with laughter, tears streaming from my eyes, hoping that I could let out all the giggles before the hymn stopped. And it just went on and on and on, the Bishop getting more and more disillusioned as time wore on, until finally, the eucharist.

Knowing that the end was finally in sight, we had all settled down a bit. People were lining up for their bit of cheap wine and crackers that some believe actually transformed into the flesh and blood of their Lord Jesus Christ. All was going fine. You could tell the Bishop just wanted out by this point, so for the first time that day we were all singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak.

And then Michael Langford spat out his wafer. Into his hand. To look at. And the Bishop saw him do it. I have literally (*literally*) never seen anybody go so fucking bat-shit mental in my life. It was like we'd broken his mind and he'd finally snapped any remaining tether with the real world. First, he started pumping his fists in the air, and did a little spinning jump. His face seemed to contain every drop of blood in his body, but he was just too angry to yell, and started making these bizarre 'eep eep' noises. And the room erupted into uncontrollable laughter.

We laughed and laughed. The sound completely drowned out the raging, ranting, red-faced Bishop. The worse we felt about it, the funnier it got, and by the time the laughter subsided - the Bishop and his entourage were gone, leaving us with a sad, broken headmaster who barely could summon the spirit to tell us off.

As far as I can remember, there were absolutely no consequences for this, and the staff never spoke of it again. Although from that point onwards, for some reason, I have always found masses really, really funny.
(leviticus no longer likes the cut of your gib on, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 16:36, 8 replies)

Funeral of a very close relative
Earlier this year myself and both brothers, three accompanying girlfriends and nephew both left for the funeral of a CLOSE relative at different times, from different places.

We all turned up five minutes late when everybody had gone in, in the middle of a very moving speech, causing heads to turn.

Our spaces IN THE FRONT ROW were all empty, and we were the only latecomers.

I have never wanted to kill myself, and my brothers, more.
(anonymouse sitting in front of a screen since 1989, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 16:20, Reply)

Comedy timing
At a friend's wedding, which was being held in a church to keep the relatives happy, the priest had reached the bit where he says "Does anyone here know of any reason why these two should not be joined in Holy Matrimony?".

At that exact moment, with perfect comedy timing, a small child broke free of its parents and ran down the aisle toward the groom, calling out "Daddy!"

No, he wasn't
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 2 Sep 2011, 16:19, Reply)