Happy Whatever

You know what Easter means to me? It means not going to church but walking the gauntlet, coffee mug in hand, of the block of Gasten with the Baptists coming out on one end and the Catholics going in on the other, on my way to Starbucks. It means smirking at the tightly wound matrons with lacquered hair and not pitying the kids--boys in their strangling ties, girls in their formless bags of drapery-patterned dresses hanging on formless wraithin bodies--though they plead with envious, despairing eyes to be rescued from the soul-sucking indoctrination. Easter means sipping Papua on the way back, smelling the wiegela, and smirking from the other side of my mouth at the continuing procession of fools. Easter means not going to the "parade" downtown with all the hats and dogs and dogs with hats, and doing what the hell I want and not speaking to anyone if I don't want to. (I don't want to.) Easter means another pagan holiday co-opted by Christianity. It means it's Sunday, that's all.