When I hang out with God, my drinking buddy, as I often do in New York, I like to about his life in the celestial realm.
While God and I were having dinner at the well-known Taiwanese eaterie called Pig Heaven, I necessarily thought of Heaven itself. So I asked my companion about his life in that celestial realm as he was scooping up a piece of pork loin and putting it in his mouth. Here I should say that he didn’t consider pork an unclean food any more than he considered bread an unclean food.
“Let me confess that Heaven was often very stressful,” God replied. “My followers would bow whenever they saw me. Imagine a giant clump of folks, one after the other bowing low. However much I tried, I couldn’t help but trip and fall on some of them. A surprising number would thank me for falling on them, saying, ’Many thanks for your love, O Lord.’”
“Maybe you could have just levitated above your followers?” I said.
“No way. I felt obliged to hobnob with them, and you can’t hobnob with someone when you’re levitating above them.”
“Then maybe you could have asked them to lighten up a bit? Maybe suggest that they flip you the bird on occasion instead of bowing?”
“The Saints were in charge of protocol in Heaven, and I asked them to put up a sign that said PLEASE REDUCE BOWING, but they vetoed the idea. Bowing is as essential in Heaven as burning is in Hell, they said. And my old buddy St. Stephen told me, ‘I can raise the dead, but I can’t stop folks from bowing down to you.’”
A waitress now brought us our check. “Let’s give that girl a good tip,” I told God.
A lady seated in the next table and holding a Yorkshire terrier in her lap must have overheard me, because she said, in a tone of petulant political correctitude, “She’s not a girl, she’s a woman.”
A short while later, her little dog started yiping, and the lady said, “Be quiet, girl.”
“She’s not a girl, she’s a woman,” God riposted, wagging his finger at the lady, who nodded her head. The next time her dog started yiping, she said, “Be quiet, woman.”
Now back to Heaven. On a whim, I asked God if Timothy Leary had been a resident, because if he was, he probably would have been delighted at the sight of the Supreme Being constantly tripping.
“As far as I know, he wasn’t,” God said. “But Heinrich Himmler was, and on those occasions when I tripped over him, he’d say ‘Sieg Heil, Mein Gott’ and give me a Nazi salute.”
“Heinrich Himmler was in Heaven?”
“One of many errors in processing. Another error: Mother Teresa ended up in Hell, and she was not pleased with her so-called Reward. Anyone with whom she came in contact ran the risk of a nasty crucifix wound. Billy Graham ended up in Hell, too. That Kingdom’s official greeter was the Apostle Paul, and when Billy Graham showed up, he shouted, ‘Paulie’s got a cracker!”
So many revelations from the Almighty One!
Part of a series detailing Lawrence Millman’s experiences with his drinking buddy, God. Soon to be gathered together, assuming a publisher is interested, as a mini-memoir entitled “Drinks With God.”
Lawrence Millman
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