No rest for the weary. Or the rested.

I was at a park. A pretty one. Looks out over the bay. Minding my own business. Composing a letter that, sent, would (will) make ticker-tape of my dignity. But so it goes.

And I got a phone call.

Twenty minutes later I wandered into my church's fellowship hall and our DCE mused aloud, "What are the odds you would have forgotten about a middle school youth event, AND still have been available to come?"

"Slim," I replied, and I got another phone call.

From whom, I have no idea, since about eight preteen heads swiveled round to shout, "No cell phones!" which was as much to say, If we can't have our cell phones here, neither can you have yours, dreadful hypocrite though you may be on your own time. I meekly powered mine down, while another chaperone informed me that, being a chaperone myself, rules did not apply to me.

Our DCE stepped in again. "So did you forget you were teaching high school Sunday School this Sunday, too?"

Now, that one was bang out of order, and I told him so. No, I had no clue I was supposed to be teaching Sunday School a day and a half hence, but neither had anyone informed me of the expectation. I had a dim recollection of notice for the middle school youth event, and fessed up to as much, but the Sunday School thing someone else had goofed.

Doesn't change the fact that suddenly I need to come up with a lesson plan, or something, anything, as it turns out Eric has finished his own series and left the future rather a bit open.

Good. Grand. Or should I say, fuck. But this is the story of my life. I was actually set apart to be a slacker, and I ably do my part to conform to that identity. Then some tremendously misguided if well-meaning people* invariably come along to hand me things I'm not prepared to handle. And I grow as a person. (*See Smetters and Wilco handing off the sacristan gig, Ed Uehling's ruination of my ultimate frisbee career by inviting me onto an academic dean search committee, et cetera, et cetera.)

And so it goes.