LOVE CAN BUILD A ... WELL ... TECHNICALLY IT CAN'T BUILD SHIT

Before we do anything today, I need everyone to get down on their knees, raise their hands high in the air and start bowing towards their respective computers and chanting "Uncle Bob, you are the King of all Mole-watchers. You picked the Mole even before the season began. You are a God amongst Gods. I shall never doubt your Mole-ish opinions again."

Heeee!!

I saw cleavage as you were bowing!

...I'm such a perv....

Now...since I'm on a hot streak, I will go ahead and tell you who wins "Survivor" which begins tonight.

The winner is ... the deaf chick.

Okay. Maybe she won't win.

But I bet she sticks around and pretends she can't hear that she was voted off. You know...the old "Point at the ears and shrug" trick.

"I'm deaf. I can't hear. I guess that means I'm still in the game" kinda thing.

So last night we went to church (NOOOO!! Really?!?) to listen to the potential new female minister give a sermon.

Beforehand, everyone had dinner and she spoke for 40 minutes, answering questions, telling us about herself and revealing some wack-assed masturbation techniques that she learned in China when she was a young lass.

There was one guy there...a member of the congregation. We'll call him George since that's his name.

George sat there and LOUDLY told everyone around him that 90% of the population of our backwards city would not welcome a female minister. He wanted to know her views on fundamentalism ... but wouldn't dare ask her. People kept turning around and giving him the gloopy eye...all "Shut up George!" And he never met their stares...just kept his head down and talked in a normal tone of voice...no whispering...just chatting away to his food about how much she sucked.

Personally, I was getting a kick out of George. I couldn't hear the new minister talking as she was on a cheap P.A. system rambling about sticking her finger in the poo-poo hole to make her heart rate soar and George was near me, so his diatribe turned out to be much more interesting.

So after she finishes her 40 minute "Get To Know You" session, we adjourn into the sanctuary where she's going to preach a sermon.

This (she promises) will be a mini-sermon. Not a regular length sermon. Hence the term "mini" sermon.

I'm just clarifying that for those of you who are recovering from recent auto accidents that have forced you to lose the bits of your memory where the word "mini" is concerned.

So she gets up there and talks for ten minutes about a trip to Hawaii that she and her husband took last year.

It's full of little jokes that aren't getting many laughs. How she rode an ATV that almost BRUISED HER TAILBONE!!!

A-ha?

Aaaaa...ha??

(Dead silence from the congregation)

She literally hits the ten-minute mark (trust me...I was timing it) before she connects the trip to Jesus.

She says "I bet you were wondering when I would get to that!"

SEVERAL people nodded their heads.

(We're used to 11 minute sermons on Sunday morning. That's full length. As a congregation, we don't want much more than that)

So then she goes on for ten MORE minutes, trying to tie an ATV ride in Hawaii into her love for her Heavenly Father. I wish I could tell you how she did this, but I was too busy eating Smarties out of the teenage girl's hand next to me.

Not...you know...licking her palm or anything. She just happened to have a bunch of Smarties and was sharing them with me. So we sat and ate Smarties and made faces when the potential minister wasn't looking at us.

That's church to me.

Anyway, she FINALLY finishes after a 20 minute long "mini" sermon and we all file out.

I hear grumbling. Grumbling is good when you don't like your potential minister.

On the drive home, Susie says she wasn't impressed with the sermon. The fact that this sermon was supposed to be her big whizz-bang sermon to impress us...and she fell way short.

I mentioned that she reminded me of a Judd.

Susie knew what I meant with that.

You see...I HATED the Judds. Naomi and Wynonna Judd...the mother-daughter musical duo.

We saw one of their TV specials...actually it was the farewell special after it was discovered that Ma Judd had psoriasis or whatever it was that made her quit the group.

In that special, they get to the big finale which is their big hit single "Love Can Build A Bridge". And Ma Judd has the whole crowd singing along with her. And she's flitting around the stage like Glenda the Good Witch from "The Wizard of Oz". She's all "Heee hee hee hee hee!" as she dances around, picking imaginary fairies out of the air and putting them in her stupid pockets on her big stupid dress. It was truly one of the most bizarre moments I ever saw on TV that didn't include a black man who bleached his skin white and told the world that he slept with little boys and thought it was a beautiful thing.

The new minister reminded me of a Judd.

And Susie agreed.

I had won her over.

We got home and there were three messages on the answering machine.

All three were from members of the church.

Asking us our opinion on her.

I let Susie do the talking since I probably would have included too many uses of the words "fuckin' shit" to really be taken seriously by a member of the church.

Amazingly, all three calls agreed with us. They weren't bowled over or sold on her either.

One of the three church members suggested that I...dear ol' Uncle Bob...get up at the Board Meeting on Sunday and lay it on the line in front of the Board that hiring this woman may not be a good idea.

I accepted the challenge.

If, for no other reason, because I don't plan on sticking around if they hire her.

I will incur the wrath of those who are head over heels in love with the woman for the duration of our stay there if she's NOT hired.

But that's okay.

I've gotten to the point where I feel disillusioned by certain members of my "church family" and may even welcome their burning stares for an hour every Sunday morning.

Soooo...I'm sure you were all giddy to hear about my church thang last night.

And there you go.

Today, I head to the University of Alabama to speak to a journalism class on how to be a successful humor writer.

God help these poor students.

I told Carolyn, who has arranged for this to happen, that I have nothing planned to say. I can give them tips on how to get hired (work for free) and how to advance in the profession (*coughblowjobcough*). But beyond that...hell...I'm clueless.

I get the feeling there's going to be a lot of staring at each other for the first 15 minutes or so.

Maybe I might scratch my armpit like a monkey for a while. You know...to break the tension in the air.

I guess I could ask if anyone hates the Judds as much as I do.

I can then expound on the virtues of being a former humor columnist who now writes terribly unfunny business profiles and how I've had to search for other avenues in which to spew my wack-assed opinions on others.

Like an online diary.

Or I could scratch my armpit for 90 minutes until the bell rings or whatever the hell happens to signify the end of a class these days.

Gotta go...got things to do...VCRs to program...shoes to shine...DVDs to mail...etc.

Have a good one.

Or don't.

Seriously ... I'm beyond concern for the quality of your day anymore.