Took a hit and then took one more

We had stake conference a couple weeks ago and I got an idea. An awful idea. I had a wonderful, awful idea. (there's a quote for you) Anyway, here was my idea. You know how sacrament meeting is with little ones. It's 75 minutes of shushing, pleading to whisper, breaking out every plastic toy, coloring book, lacing card you've got, and finally stuffing the little mouths with mini marshmallows in an effort to keep them quiet and placated all the while trying to gather the smallest amount of spiritual growth and knowledge from the speaker so your worship doesn't feel in vain and (more importantly) so when you see said speaker in the hall later you can thank him or her for a wonderful talk and say something competent. Well, we all know stake conference is ten times worse; and of course, all hope is completely lost if we end up sitting in the over flow area on the metal folding chairs. (Which we always do.) Might as well pack up and head home for all the good it will do us and the harm it will do whoever we sit by. The metal chairs combined with the wood gym floor make for a, uh, perfect storm, shall we say of childhood noise. Clanging toy cars on those metal seats reverberate to no end and no matter how hard the kiddies try those same cars are always sliding across the seat, swooshing up over the back lip on the chair and slamming into the completely non absorbent shellacked floor of the gym. Even if cars are put away and sedentary activities brought out there is something about the folding chairs that just lours the children in like bugs to those zappy blue lights. I don't know a kid who can sit still on a folding chair without poking fingers or feet into the crevices and slats. (Actually I bet those Eddington kids could.) I remember a particular sacrament meeting from my childhood in which my father carried my screaming brother out into the foyer while my mother carried the folding chair his head was stuck in. (That's my brother Phil. Things like that just happen to him.)

Anyway, back to stake conference. My idea was this. To offer ourselves even the slimmest possibility of making it through the two hour meeting we had to sit in a pew and preferably one of the side ones. I need the cushion seat to dampen noise, the hard back to offer a visual block, and the wall on the side to contain the kids so there is only one way out. Unfortunately, past experience has shown that you have to show up a minimum of an hour early to sit in the pew section and, well, that's just laughable around here. I don't know why people show up so early. Stay home. Have a nice breakfast. Come 10 minutes early, maybe 15. Please. To combat these people who enjoy sitting and listening to the choir practice and chatting with old friends in other wards my plan was to take all my church bags and scriptures with me to the Saturday evening adult meeting and then strategically place them on a desired pew to act as a placeholder and await my timely arrival the next morning about 10 minutes before the meeting started. It was genius! Why had I not thought of this before. A solution to my problem. It was good in so many ways. It saved me a needed pew, it took care of packing the bags so I wasn't rushing to do it Sunday morning, it forced us to be a little bit early since it would be far to embarrassing to walk in late to a pew other people had been wanting. I ran into one snag. The husband. He did not think this was such a good idea although every friend I questioned heartily agreed it was. He told me I couldn't do it. He told me even if I tried somebody would probably go through the chapel after the Saturday meeting, collect all the left bags, and drop them at the lost-and-found. With a bit of resentment in my heart (a great way to start a church meeting) I left the bags and went with him.

You can imagine the look on Chris' face when Brother Anderson gets up to give a few announcements and comments that in conferences past some people have thought it clever to leave bags, coats, scriptures to save a place for them so they don't have to come early the next morning. He let us all know that several people would indeed be going through the chapel after the meeting and collecting all left items to be deposited on top of the coat racks. Ahhh, foiled again. This was doubly hard, not only was my idea shot down while Chris' ego got a firm boost but apparently this was not such a brilliant, cutting-edge idea in the first place. Evidently enough people thought of this before me that the leadership has taken notice. Rats! So much for my idea. My terrible idea. My terrible, mundane, overused idea.

[I showed 'em in the end though. We did, in fact, show up an hour early to stake conference and DID get to sit in the pews! Although not a side one with a wall. That's got to be some kind of first! Yes, Dad, we were EARLY.]