The Legoland Convention

"Did you hear Mr Halliday is sick and won't be here this morning?" Marian remarked to the young mother on duty with her in the church nursery one Sunday morning.

"Good thing!" snapped back the young mother, trying to quiet a bawling five-month-old. "He's one of the most boring persons I've listened to. He just rambles on and on."

Earlier in the week, on Wednesday evening, Marian had had a similar problem with her husband, Philip.

"Let's go," Philip had said as he clicked off the TV set and watched the opening episode of Star Trek shrink to a tiny dot. As they made their way to the elevator he had let his resentment burst out.

"How did we get ourselves talked into this deal, hon?" he had demanded, pushing the button. "One of the few evenings we're alone."

"Someone's got to help the missionaries."

"But they're so dull, and they don't even talk our language. The last man we heard talked as if he lived in another world - didn't even communicate."

"Our church supports them."

"Well, it's about time we quit," he said.

"Philip, we've got so much."

"I'd rather put my money where it works."

"What do you mean by that?"

The elevator doors swung open. "Look, hon," he said as they stepped out together, "I just can't take this. Do you mind very much?" Dangling the keys, he went on. "Why don't you count me out tonight? Tell me all about it when you come home. Watch the bridge - traction's bad. We'll get snow tires next week."

Riding back up to the eighteenth floor, Philip sighed. "Oh, well, next time I'll go." He hurried back to Star Trek. At the door he paused. "Oh God - the key!" By the time he got back down to the parking lot, his wife was past the first traffic light, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. "I'll touch up my eye shadow outside the church," she thought, "and tell them Philip is busy tonight."


"I'm never alone,I'm alone all the time
Are you at one or do you lie
We live in a wheel where everyone steals
But when we rise it's like strawberry fields"

"Don't let the days go by,
Glycerine "