“I’m so proud to stand before you after yet another year of increased profits. At this rate there is not a single competitor who can claim any more than 6% of the market share. The team that sits before me is the sole reason for this. It is your hard work, your extreme dedication, your attention to detail and inability to let anything, regardless of how small it may be, slide that allows us to grow while the rest of the market slows. With this team in place, their is no way we can fail. Now, do we have any… ah yes I can see a hand raised already, that’s what I like to see. You have a question?”

On a day there was a man. And on that day that man had an idea…a rotten idea. It involved taking a goldfish—a live one, not the snack—and placing it in his bottom. And not just one. As many as he could muster.

“What religion is this again?”

“Lutheran, I think.”

We sat there, Claudia and me, watching the activity on the altar. I could tell the guy doing the talking was cool because he wore a short-sleeved black shirt with his clerical collar. He was animated and funny. He held up a gold coin like the ones I got at Circus Circus in Vegas when I was 10; either that or he had the waxy chocolate ones with Menorahs on them we got in our Christmas stockings.

If I were a cow, which I am, moo, sup? From now on I’d think twice about oncoming cars, especially the ones with their lights on full moo, blindin’ my eyes, makin’ my tail go all wonky and clenched sphincters.

When Peg walked into the Recreation Center, Leila McCoy was standing by the old upright, eyes squeezed shut, warbling “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” like some hip hopper on American Idol. Peg waited until Leila finished and James Hickey, the choirmaster, spotted her.

“Hello, Peg,” he said. “Are you here to audition?”

“I am.” Peg felt the heat come to her face. James was bald now, and his belly hung over his belt, but he’d once been the sharpest boy at Our Lady of the Blessed Sorrows.