Steve Dublanica's Blog

Amor Ingeniosus Est

I was having drinks and a cigar with a friend when he said, “If you’d become a priest, you’d be a bishop by now.” 

“And Jesus wept,” I replied. 

“No,” he said, “I’m serious. I’ve seen you speak, read your stuff, you’re a natural. People listen to you.” 

“That’s very flattering,” I said, feeling embarrassed by my friend’s overestimation of my abilities, “But if I got ordained, I think I’d’ve ended up becoming a drunk.” 

“Nonsense,” he said. “You don’t get drunk, at least not anymore.”

“Well,” I said, shaking the ice in my glass, “Maybe today’s the day. But I tell you one thing, if I’d become a bishop, I know what my episcopal motto would’ve been.”

“What?” 

“Amor Ingeniosus Est – Love is Ingenious.” 

“That’s a good one.” 

“It’s from the writings of St. Paul of the Cross. It was the motto of a very fine man named Norbert Dorsey, the former bishop of Orlando. I met him once on retreat and he had quite an impact on me. I even used his motto in one of my books. Norbert was one of the good ones.”

“Too bad there aren’t enough like him.” 

“True,” I muttered. 

Then, looking me in the eye, my friend said, “The Church blew it when they lost you.” 

“Stop,” I said, throwing up my hands. “I think I’m exactly where God wants me to be.” 

While I’ll admit to sometimes fantasizing about being an irreverent and slightly crazed pope, I know I’d have never become a bishop if I’d stuck seminary out. I have too big a mouth and a perverse love of fucking with pompous assholes, of which the episcopacy is well staffed. But my friend, God bless him, has always been in my corner, seeing me in a positive light even when I didn’t and, while I appreciated his fulsome praise, I chalked it up to his ability to always see the good in people, and more than a few whiskeys.

Then a few days later, I was reading a book about religious history when the author, discussing how pagan Romans were amazed, and sometimes discomfited, by the care early Christians lavished on the poor, orphans, foundlings, widows, elderly, and the sick, noted that, prior to the church, institutions providing continuous care for such people simply didn’t exist. It didn’t happen all at once, nor unfold perfectly, but the message of the Gospel those earliest followers of “The Way” preached – with its call to care for the least of their brothers and sisters –  eventually percolated through all levels of ancient society with, through the lens of history, astonishing rapidity, and kicked thousands of years of pagan religion, which was often just religious cover to excuse the cruel barbarities inflicted by the strong upon the weak, to the curb. Other than the occasional kook, you don’t find too many people worshipping Mithras anymore. 

Then the author mentioned a 3rd century Christian document I’d never heard of before, the Didascalia, which outlined the duties a bishop had towards his flock. “Encompassing,” the author wrote, “Responsibility for the education of orphans, aid to poor widows, and the purchase of food and firewood for the destitute, as well as strict vigilance over the money flowing through the church, lest it issue from men guilty of injustice or of the abuse of slaves, or lest it find its way into the hands of persons not genuinely in need.” Slack jawed, I realized I was reading my job description. Last week marked my tenth anniversary as the director of my town’s social service’s department and, after reading this knew, in all that time, I’d checked every one of the Didascalia’s boxes. 

My department, in addition to maintaining a food pantry, pays for school lunch programs, send kids to summer camp, help maintain widows in their homes, buy medications for elderly folks, collect toys and school supplies for disadvantaged children – some of them orphans – get people warm clothes, pay overdue rents, place the disabled into new jobs and apartments, shelter immigrants fleeing poverty and violence in their homelands, and, while I don’t pass out firewood, we’ve shelled out a bundle helping people pay their heating and electrical bills too. I don’t do all this by myself mind you. Without the help of my volunteers and the generous people who’ve donated their time, money and expertise to my department year in and year out, none of it would be possible. But, because I’m also the steward of the monies and goods we receive, my role also involves making sure it goes to people who are “genuinely in need,” which is the least fun part of my job.  

When I started in 2015, my predecessor summed up the job as being a “generosity coordinator” which I’ve always thought very apropos.  Like I said, without other people’s help, nothing would get done, so my role is to wrangle people’s talents, time, and resources so as to have the best effect which is basically “overseeing” the whole shebang, and the Greek word for overseer is episkopos – bishop.  My wife is always saying running a food pantry was my chance to get the parish I never had but, after reading the Didascalia, I realized my friend could’ve been right – maybe I might’ve had what it took. Yes, I know this all a bit self-aggrandizing but the symmetry of my former vocation with the one I have today is both wonderful, humbling and delightfully weird because, as I see generous people bring in donations day in and day out, I’ve gotten to see ‘oI Norbert was right – love is indeed ingenious. Maybe today at least, I’m exactly where God wants me to be. Looking up from my book, I yelled, ““Honey, I just got a promotion.” 

But if I wear one of those pointy hats to work, I’ll probably get fired. 

The post Amor Ingeniosus Est  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Dragonfly

I woke up with a nagging pain in my right arm, which didn’t surprise me since I’d been afflicted with what I figured was a bad case of tendonitis all week. Because I’d rolled onto the offending limb in my sleep, the pain was now acute. Since this syndrome had been messing up my nights, I’d been bunking in the guest bedroom so as not to disturb my wife’s slumber. Suffice to say, I was running quite the sleep deficit. Rolling out of bed I went into the bathroom, popped three Advil, and then rubbed some lineament into my arm to numb things up.  

Sitting in my quiet living room with coffee and the news, I waited patiently for the drugs to work their magic until it was time to wake my daughter up for cheerleading practice. Rosie, my new Boston Terrier, perhaps sensing my distress, plopped down next to me on the couch and started licking my leg. As I listened to the clock tick, I felt my mood begin to darken with each passing second. “If this is how you are at fifty-seven,” I thought to myself, “Then old age is going to be a shipwreck.” When the caffeine finally hit my bloodstream, I went upstairs and nudged Natalie awake. 

“Get cracking, kid,” I said. “Practice is in an hour.” 

Still in my robe, I went into the kitchen to make breakfast when I spied a bunch of boxes piled in a corner awaiting flattening for disposal. Aggravated my wife hadn’t done this already – probably knowing I’d do it anyway – I scooped one of the floor, drew a kitchen knife out of the cutlery block and started to cut, hitting resistance when the blade encountered a stiff piece of tape. Grunting, I put my elbow into it and the knife burst through the box and sliced the middle finger of my left hand. 

“Fuck!” I yelped. 

Embarrassed at my stupidity, I went to the sink to wash out my finger, watching as my baby aspirin thinned blood stained the water red. Looking at the cut, I knew it’d need stitches. Wrapping my finger in a paper towel and applying pressure, I used my free hand to call my wife who was out was meeting friends in Manhattan. 

“Yeah,” I said, after explaining what happened. “I need to go to urgent care.” After my wife said she’d find someone else to take our daughter to practice I went upstairs and calmly told Natalie I had to go to the doctor. “No biggie,” I said, so as not to alarm her. “But someone else will take you to practice. Mom will call you.” 

When I arrived at the urgent care center, the waiting room was empty save for a mother with a little boy lying in her lap. The child looked feverish and, as his mom gently stroked his hair, I could tell she was nervous. Remembering a couple of scary visits to the ER with Natalie, I understood. Then after a few minutes spent texting my wife, the door swung open, and a nurse bade me entrée. “I’m here for this,” I said, holding up my injured digit. “It’s very serious because I use this finger to communicate all time.” 

“I hear ya,” she said, laughing. 

“Think I can get a handicapped sticker out of this deal?’ 

“Probably not.” 

Finding my vitals sound, the nurse said the doctor would be with me in a few minutes. Then I mentioned the pain in my arm. “Since I’m here,” I said, “I might as well get it checked out.” 

“No need for stitches,” the doctor said twenty minutes later. “Just a dressing.” 

“Oh good,” I said. “I thought I’d really messed it up.” 

“The arm, however, I think you have a bad case of tendonitis. But we’ll take an X-Ray to be sure nothing else is going on. Could be some calcification there.” Great. More rads. I’d just had a CT scan the previous day because of a problem with my lower back, a sciatic issue that had killed my running routine dead. When the radiology tech asked if I wanted a lead apron, I replied in the affirmative.

Back in the exam room awaiting the results, I noticed I was becoming very agitated. Ever since my cancer experience, I get the heebie-jeebies every time I smell Lysol. “Hearing aids, cancer, glasses, my back and now this,” I thought to myself. “I am falling apart.” In addition to the CT scan that week, I also had blood work to see if my cancer was still in remission which, despite having been tested many times, still sets me on edge. But I also knew thoughts of my recently departed friend, a man my age, were rattling around my head. Taking a deep breath, I tried thinking positive thoughts. “Your blood test came back golden,” I thought. “Your heart is good, your weight is down, your vitals were perfect, you have a lovely wife and daughter, a job with purpose, and it’s a beautiful day. What are you complaining about?” 

“You’re arm looks fine,” the doctor said, looking at the x-ray. “But I’m going to refer you to an orthopedist. It could be cubital tunnel syndrome.” 

“Probably from holding my damn cell phone.” 

“Could be,” she said. “I’ll give you a course of steroids for the pain.” Oh goody. That shit beats the hell out of Advil. 

Walking out with a script, I went to the pharmacy, got my drugs, and then walked over to the diner to get breakfast. I hadn’t eaten since five the previous afternoon and was feeling it. Once the waitress placed a glass of water in front of me, I opened the blister pack and popped me some ‘roids. Hopefully I wouldn’t turn into the Incredible Hulk. 

“What’s that for?” the young waitress asked. 

“I’m getting old,” I replied.

“You’re not old,” she chided. 

“Honey,” I said, “The Fifties have sucked.” 

Breakfasted and feeling better, I drove to the practice field to make sure my daughter knew I was okay. My mother-in-law had picked her up and told me she’d take Natalie to grandma’s for the afternoon. Good. I needed a break. Then the urgent care center called me. “We didn’t give you a tetanus shot,” a tech said. “Come back.” When I walked into the waiting room this time, however, the place was packed with people of all ages looking miserable. Luckily, the staff took me in right away.  

“I leave and all hell breaks loose,” I said, as the nurse needled my arm. 

“Yeah,” she said. “It got really busy.” Walking out, I saw an old man with his head in his hands while his wife gently rubbed his back. That had been me after the docs told me I had cancer. Jesus. 

Back at my house, I liberated the dog to let her run in the backyard and pee. Then, just as I was winding up to toss a tennis ball, a large purple dragonfly settled into a hover inches from my face. Instead of being alarmed, however, I was awestruck by its effortless and graceful flight. As if sensing me, the dragonfly bobbed up and down, almost like it was saying hello. Then, settling on the grass, the bug was still, allowing me to see the glory of its iridescent diamantine wings, as if it were an angel announcing the wonder of creation. Standing under the bright sun, time seemed to stop and everything in my humble backyard suddenly became luminously beautiful – making every tree, blade of grass, and flower shimmer while the birds’ singing resounded like chorusing Cherubim. Looking down, I saw that Rosie had crept up on the dragonfly and was transfixed by it too, as if sharing in my little moment of rapture. Then the dragonfly flew away and the spell was broken. 

Knowing I’d been under pressure lately, I figured I’d had some kind of stress reaction, and that my unconscious had weaved some emotionally imbued imagery together to soothe me. I’d seen my dead friend at his wake, so I knew anything was possible. Maybe it was the steroids screwing with me. Despite my theologizing, I can be quite the cynic. Now with the house to myself, I did something I can never do when my wife and kid are home – watch TV. Flipping through the channels, I stumbled across an old favorite, the BBC show Rev. About an Anglican vicar ministering to an inner city parish in London, I’d always thought the title character played by Tom Hollander was a lot like me and, as I watched him deal with the homeless, addicted, mentally ill, and folks just needing a sympathetic ear, I’d told my wife the reverend’s parish mirrored my job perfectly – just without the soutane and incense. But I also knew Hollander’s sensitive portrayal of the vicar mirrored my own struggles with faith as well. Does anything I do matter? Is my belief just death anxiety evading bullshit? Should I just sell cars? 

As the show progressed, one of the parish’s schoolteachers is killed in an accident and it falls upon the vicar to break the news to the school’s very young students. Looking ill at ease in his cassock, the vicar tells the kids that they wouldn’t be seeing their teacher anymore. Noting that the teacher didn’t believe in heaven, but that he did, he said, “I don’t know what [Heaven] is, but I do know a story that gives me an idea.”

“It’s a story about a lot of little bugs that lived at the bottom of a river and every now and then one of the bugs would crawl up a plant through the water into the light and he’d never be seen again by his friends. And one day one special little bug felt that he wanted to crawl up the plant too, so he did. He crawled up the plant through the water into the light and he turned into an amazing colorful dragonfly – and he flew around the air, and he was the happiest he’d ever been. But when he tried to fly back down into the water to tell his bug friends how wonderful it was, he found he couldn’t. He couldn’t get down into the water anymore because he wasn’t a bug anymore, he was a dragonfly. And this upset him until he remembered that one day, all his friends would crawl up the plant too and join him in the sun.”

Sitting on my couch with tears running down my cheeks, I knew seeing that dragonfly in my backyard and hearing the vicar’s words soon afterwards hadn’t been a coincidence. My vision hadn’t been a stress reaction; it had been something else. What? I don’t know but, as Rosie snored contentedly next to me, I felt my fears and cynicism melt away, sensing without words that a curtain had been parted and, for a moment, I’d been given a glimpse of the glory that suffuses and sustains existence. Perhaps it had been the world’s wonder reminding me of the beauty that awaits us all – that one day we will all be like dragonflies, flying happily together under the warm sun. 

The post Dragonfly appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Amen, Brother

Which ever way you swing religion wise, this is a sermon worth listening to.

The post Amen, Brother appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Great Choice!

Why am I only hearing about this short film now?

The post Great Choice! appeared first on Waiter Rant.

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

Several months back, I was watching the HBO show White Lotus when one of the characters asked an old Buddhist monk happens to us after death. “When you are born,” the monk said, “You are like a single drop of water, flying upward, separated from the one giant consciousness. You get older, you descend back down. You die. You land back in the water, become one with the ocean again. No more separated. No more suffering. One consciousness. Death is a happy return, like coming home.” 

I found the monk’s words reassuring and unsettling at the same time. While I’m all on board with suffering going out the window and death being a happy return, my ego rebelled against the idea of my disappearing into some anonymous and eternally vast ocean of consciousness. Not being an expert on Buddhism, however, I’m sure I was missing something. But that monk’s words came back to haunt me last month, after my oldest friend Andy died in his sleep while vacationing in the Caribbean. When his wife called that morning to tell me the news, I wasn’t surprised because he’d had health problems for a long time, but it was still a shock. 

When I went to the funeral home a week later, I saw my what remained of my friend of forty-three years in a wooden box on a table surrounded by a collage of pictures celebrating his life. Andy had been cremated in the islands and part of me was sad I couldn’t see him one last time, but part of me was also relieved. When people your own age die, especially someone you were close too, it can be too much to handle. Then, after I gave a eulogy and the priest said his words, we took the urn to the memorial garden at his family’s church and deposited Andy’s ashes into ground, all of us taking turns covering the hole with earth. After performing this last rite, I walked away from the mourners and looked up at the sky. It’d had been a very hot day, and the media had been blaring warnings about severe thunderstorms rolling in all morning. High above, dark clouds filled to bursting boiled above us but, directly above the church, they’d parted to create a circle of pure azure sky. As the sun’s power fell like a divine spotlight on the proceedings, I smiled. I hadn’t needed the umbrella I’d brought. 

At the repast afterwards, I was nursing my second margarita when I saw Andy sitting at a table by himself, looking at the fuss being made over him with a bemused smile. As you can imagine I was a tad surprised. Then, when I blinked, my friend was gone, replaced by one of his relatives sitting alone with a beer. Seeing the departed isn’t unusual soon after death – one of the few hallucinatory experiences that won’t get you committed – so I didn’t think I was going insane. I’d even heard my departed dogs barking and walking around a for a few weeks after they’d passed. “That’s just Felix telling us he’s okay,” my wife told me after I’d leapt out of bed, thinking I’d left him outside before remembering he was gone. “Go back to bed.” Though it might’ve been a confluence of grief, booze, exhaustion and nerves, I wondered if my friend’s appearance was his way of telling me he was okay too.

Two weeks later in Lake Tahoe, however, my eyes snapped open at 4:00 am and I could feel my heart racing in my chest. Lying in bed terrified, I wondered if some medical malady had roused me from slumber – but I don’t have sleep apnea and, when I checked the EKG feature on my smart watch, it told me I was in sinus rhythm. Chalking it off to an unremembered nightmare, I tried going back to sleep but, because thoughts were frothing about my brain, I couldn’t. Then I realized what was going on. My friend had gone to bed and didn’t wake up and I was afraid the same thing would happen to me. After tossing and turning for a while, I gave up on sleep and went down to the hotel’s lobby to see if they’d managed to make coffee. Of course, there was none. 

Walking outside, I went to the lake’s shore and stared at the vast expanse of placid water ringed by mountains as the sun began to rise. It was very beautiful, but I found myself wondering if that old monk had been right; that we’re just drops of water that will eventually fall back into an eternal sea. Was my friend still who he was? What would become of me? Spiritualties that say you must lose all sense of self in order to access the divine have always bothered me. The idea of losing all I am to become one with some kind of Cosmic Om just seems like a journey of the alone into The Alone. The negation of your being to return to Being is, when you think about it, violent. Not my idea of a “happy return.” 

The next evening after dinner I decided to take my family on a drive. We’d already been all around Lake Tahoe, so I pointed my car in the opposite direction and, as we summited a mountain, felt my ears pop as we climbed past 7300 feet. Then, after we’d gone over the ridge, we were treated to quite sight. Below us the Carson Valley shimmered in the light of the setting sun as the Sierra Nevada’s glowed with purple mountain majesty. “You don’t see this in Jersey,” I said to my wife. Cradled in the valley below, the town of Minden seemed like a child’s toy and, awed by the beauty being lavished before me, I realized there was so much more of this world for me to see. From the heights, the view unfolded for a hundred miles, making it seem like the mighty mountain chain stretched into infinity. Then I remembered something a guy once wrote, “The finite cannot contain the infinite, but the infinite can easily contain the finite.”  Maybe that’s what that old monk meant – that there’s plenty of room in existence for all of us as us. No negation, no violence or loss – just a happy return to the place where every tear is wiped away. 

During the sermon at the funeral, the priest told us what Andy’s wife had said to him soon after her husband of thirty-two years died. “I’ll can just see Andy saying, ‘Oh Goody!’ when he entered heaven.” Looking at the vista below my feet as grief and joy surged within me, I knew infinity, far from being a solvent into which we dissolve, was the very thing that allowed us to be and that it’s peaceful beauty not only contained us but was the very thing that would make “all things new.” Oh, goody indeed. Perhaps that’s why Andy had a bemused smile on his face when I saw him, as if telling me:

 “Steve, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” 

The post You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Casino

We had an early flight out of Reno Airport so, to avoid rushing, we left Tahoe the day before and checked into The Nugget Casino in Sparks, Nevada. After settling into our dated room in the Casino Tower, I said to my wife, “Let’s hit the slots.”  Not being stupid, I wedged a chair under the knob of our room’s connecting door and had Natalie throw the lock when we left. 

“When I call you,” I told her, “You’d better answer.” 

“Okay, Dad,” Natalie said, happy to be left alone with her iPad.

I have gambled in casinos before, mostly blackjack and poker with reasonable success. This time out, however, I wasn’t in the mood to hit the tables and just wanted to spend an hour or two playing the slots with my wife. When we walked into the casino, however, Annie was agog at the high limits. 

“$25 a spin?” Annie said. 

“There are $5 and $1 slots,” I said. 

“No, we’re hitting the penny ones.” 

“It’s never, ever a penny.” 

“I don’t want to lose money.” 

Sighing, I went over to a penny slot and, after feeding it money, it whirled, jingled and flashed. My wife said, “We won!” 

“We lost.” 

“Huh?” 

“The least amount you can bet on this machine is thirty credits, that’s 30 cents. We ‘won’ ten credits but really lost 20 cents.” 

“That sucks.” 

“Intermittent rewards, babe,” I said. “That’s how they hook you.” Eventually, we tired of this con and went to the $1 slots and after going up and down, I placed the max bet – and lost. 

“Let’s go to another machine,” Annie said. 

“Okay,” I said. “But let’s go for one more dollar.” This time Lady Luck smiled on us, and we hit for $103. Damn, if I’d only placed the max bet again. 

“We’re done,” I said. “Let’s go get a drink and quit while we’re ahead.” 

Finding a bar, I ordered red wine for my wife and a Bloody Mary for myself. Feeding a dollar into the video poker machine in the bar, I played for a couple of nickels a hand. When I didn’t get a check, however, I asked the bartender, (Who was the spitting image of my friend Jimmy Noonan of WWE & Supertroopers fame ) what that the deal was. “If you’re gambling the drinks are free,” he said, flatly. Duh. How could I forget?  

“See honey?” I said. “Two drinks for one dollar wagered. That’s how places like this get you.”   

“Uh huh,” my wife said. 

“Look at all these people at the bar,” I said, pointing to the patrons staring into Keno machines, their faces oblivious and lit with a ghostly glow. “Where have you seen that before?” 

“I dunno,” Annie said. “Where?” 

“It looks like people staring at their cellphones.” 

“You’re right.” 

“Those bastards at Facebook and Instagram took their design cues from slot machines. Intermittent rewards and little dopamine hits. That’s how they got billions of people hooked to their gizmos and spending money. Compared to what those guys rake in, Vegas might as well be a lemonade stand.” 

I’d only drank half my Bloody Mary because Annie quaffed the other half along with her generous pour of wine. A lightweight drinker, I knew the booze would hit her like a freight train. Signaling the bartender, I asked for another drink. “This one’s mine,” I said. 

“Sure,” Annie said with a faraway look in her eye. I could tell she was falling under the casino’s spell. When we were in Vegas a few years ago she won $500 at slots but eventually lost it all. Uh oh. Then a guy walked up next to us and called out to the bartender. “Hey!” he yelled. “You hear what happened to Frank?” 

“No,” the bartender said. 

“He got fucking murdered!” 

“No shit” the bartender said, his face devoid of expression.

“He was fucking around with some quiff and, well, he got what he got I guess.” You meet such lovely people in a casino. 

“Let’s go,” I said, leaving a fiver on the bar. Just the day before some lunatic shot up a Reno casino and I wasn’t keen on listening to stories about homicide. 

“Let’s play a little bit more,” Annie said, so, we hit the slots again and lost twenty bucks. “All done,” I said, “We’re still up eighty bucks. In this town, that’s a win.” 

“You go upstairs,” Annie said. “I’ll try my luck some more.”

“No way,” I said, “If I leave you down here, you’ll be selling your blood by morning.” 

As we made our way to the elevator through the casino, I thought of how I loved going to Atlantic City when I was younger, or when Las Vegas seemed like a great adventure. But now, seeing the glazed eyes of patrons mindlessly pulling levers and pushing buttons, I thought of the first lines from Ian Fleming’s book, Casino Royale. “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning,” he wrote. “Then the soul erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.” 

At five the next morning, I was chatting with our Uber driver on the way to the airport when the topic of the recent shooting came up. “People in there just kept gambling,” he said. “Like nothing was happening.” Sounds about right. A guy I knew saw his father drop dead of a heart attack in a casino. He told me as the EMT’s were doing chest compressions, the betting never stopped, and people hardly looked up from their cards. But then again, people often react the same way with their cellphones, not even sparing a glance for someone in distress or, worse, filming it for social media likes – which makes me think profit driven tech bros will only be happy until the entire world has been turned into an unfeeling gigantic money hoovering diabolical casino. Talk about soul erosion. Talk about nauseating. You think you’re winning with all the free stuff and entertainment your apps give you, but you’re really losing. Talk about revolting – but when you want to see a freak show, nothing beats a casino. 

But does my daughter have to grow up in one?

The post Casino  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

How The Tables Have Turned and Burned

I was in a German restaurant perched on a mountainside near Lake Tahoe getting pissed off. I don’t know what it was, but I got a vibe from the staff that we weren’t wanted. Judging from the crappy table we got and the Rolexes dangling from several of the patrons’ wrists, I figured the restaurant was a haunt for wealthy Teutonic habitués and we didn’t make the cut. Also, my lager took forever to arrive. Then when our waiter, a way too cool for school hipster finally arrived with his dupe pad, we ordered dinner with a “mini” pretzel and Brussel sprouts to start. But when our appetizers arrived the pretzel was the size of Bavaria. “This is a mini?” I asked.

“No,” the waiter said, “It’s the regular pretzel.” 

“I ordered a mini one.” 

“No,” the waiter said, a shade too aggressively. “You just said you wanted a pretzel.” 

Michael Caine had a little acting trick. When he wanted to exude power or menace, he’d look at the floor and then, without moving his head, slowly bring his eyes up. Doing the same thing, I locked eyes with the waiter and unleashed my thousand yard stare – the one where my gaze goes through your eyes like a bullet, blows out the back of your head, and then zips onwards into infinity.  The waiter rocked back on his heels like he’d been punched. 

“No,” I said, slowly.  “I distinctly remember asking for a small one.” Flummoxed, and probably not used to have his coolness perturbed, he said. “Okay, I’ll just charge you for a small one.” 

“I appreciate that, sir,” I said. “Thank you.” Sir Michael would have been proud of me. 

“You said you wanted the small pretzel,” my wife said, as the waiter walked away. “I heard you.” 

“No biggie,” I said, smearing mustard on my oversized twist of carbs, Then, with a chuckle, I realized I was a lot like our waiter twenty-five years ago, but was now firmly ensconced in that middle aged cadre of grumps who can’t stand being ripped off. How the tables have turned and burned. Hypocrisy? Perhaps, but when we finished our admittedly excellent meal, I tipped the waiter 20% – in cash. I guess I haven’t gone completely over to the dark side. 

After a scenic sunset drive through mountains overlooking Lake Tahoe, we returned to our resort by the lake, looking forward to toasting some hotel supplied smore’s by their de riguier California fire pit. But, when I went to the front desk to pick up the smore’s “kit” the clerk said they were all out. 

“Didn’t they tack on a resort fee to our bill?” I asked my wife as we walked away. 

“Indeed, they did.” 

“And they can’t manage a few extra graham crackers and marshmallows?”

“What can I say?” Annie said. “They can’t even get coffee right.”

The morning after our first night, I went down to the hotel’s lobby to score some “free” coffee. but the urn was empty. “Restaurant opens at eight,” the gruff night clerk told me. “That’s when the coffee comes out.” Looking at my watch, I saw I was in for a two hour wait. Having been in food service, I knew brewing an urn of coffee was a simple enough task, but that seemed beyond this lazy ass clerk’s skill set. Since I had nothing to do, and my wife and daughter were still asleep, I plopped down on a couch and read a book on my phone, watching as patron after sleepy patron walked up to the urn, only to come up empty. It was like watching addicts discovering their eight ball had seen switched out with baby powder. 

“The guy said eight o’clock,” I told one well-heeled looking oldster. 

“But I need it now,” the man, in the grip of caffeine withdrawal, said. “What the hell?” 

This was only one of the many annoyances I encountered during our hotel stay. In addition to the paucity of smore’s:

Our shower door had an inch gap from the floor, allowing water to flood the bathroom, forcing us to use our towels to sop up the mess. The front desk didn’t put us on the housekeeping list, so the maid didn’t come to make up our room and give us new towels.The guest laundry machine was dirty, and the folding table covered in matted hair.They ran out of towels by the pool. The bar ran out of Bloody Mary mix and several of the beers on offer were “unavailable.”   We were awoken at 3:00 am by the sound of a broken sprinkler spewing hundreds of gallons of water outside our window. (And the gruff night manager took his sweet ass time shutting it off)  They were always running out of creamers and sugar by the lobby coffee station. (When they had coffee.) The front desk was understaffed, leading to long lines. If you wanted some shade by the pool, you had to pay extra for an umbrella. The hotel was supposed to be “elegant” but, looking closely, you could see maintenance was an afterthought. 

“Daddy?” my daughter said, disappointed there were no smore’s, “Can we get some ice cream instead?” 

“Sure,” I said. “I think I saw a gelato place on the other side of the street.” 

The gelato place had a long line and, as we waited our turn, one of the workers knelt on the floor to refill a waist high fridge with treats. Noticing it’s door kept slamming on her shoulder, I held it open for her. 

“You don’t have to do that, sir,” she said. 

“My pleasure,” I said, letting several patrons go ahead of us. Then when it was our turn to order, the very same lady rang us up. “I gave you ten percent off,” she said, smiling. “Because you were so nice.” 

“That’s very sweet,” I said. “Thank you.” Then I slipped a nice tip into her jar, which elicited another smile.

The next morning, I went down to the lobby and, yet again, there was no coffee. “I put it on to brew, sir,” the morning clerk, a young girl probably still in high school, said. “It’ll be ready in five minutes.” But, because she was the only person at the desk and dealing with a long line of people checking out, her estimate was hopelessly optimistic. Cue the parade of frustrated addicts again. One young woman even slammed her hand on the coffee counter in frustration. Time to be a hero. 

Walking into the restaurant kitchen, I found the urn and, to the shock of the cook, lifted it up by the handles and brought it into the lobby. “Buddy,” I said to a guy sadly holding a paper cup, “Help me out and take the old urn off the table.” Then I placed the hot fresh coffee on the counter. “It’s about time,” the man grunted. 

“And I don’t even work here,” I said. Then I brought the empty urn back into the kitchen, got two cups of coffee, gave the desk clerk a salute, and went back to my room. 

“They had coffee this time?” my wife said. I told her about my heroism.

“They must’ve loved you.” 

“This place is on its last legs,’ I said. “All the signs are there.” 

When it came time to check out the next morning my wife said, “Do not leave the maid a tip. She didn’t clean our room.” 

“Okay, honey,” I said. Then, under pretense of checking for items we might’ve left behind, I went back to the room and put a fiver on a pillow. On the way to Reno airport, my wife said. “You left the maid a tip, didn’t you?” 

“It wasn’t the maid’s fault the front desk didn’t put us on the housekeeping schedule.” 

“I forgot who I married.” 

Time has indeed turned the tables but, despite becoming of one those middle-aged patrons I once despised, I haven’t forgotten where I came from. 

The post How The Tables Have Turned and Burned  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Crossing The Street

A few nights ago, I was walking home with my daughter from a nearby restaurant when we stopped at a light to cross the street. The day had been unbearably hot, but an approaching cold front was stirring just enough of an breeze to take the edge off the lingering humid heat. Below the horizon, the twilight sun was casting purpling shadows across the sky while the clouds above us shimmered like amaranth dreams.

Reaching out, I offered my daughter my hand and she took it. At the age where her parents are becoming “embarrassing,” Natalie often refuses, but not that night. Feeling her little hand in mine, I looked down to see her looking up at me, her face graced by a small smile. Whether it was a trick of the light or the margarita I’d had, she seemed both girl and woman at the same time, what I’d known and what she what was about to come. Watching her hair wavering in the breeze as her perspiring skin sparkled under the streetlamp’s sodium light, I marveled at my daughter’s loveliness. How’d she grow up so fast? Heading off to middle school next fall, Natalie’s no longer a baby – as her latest obsession with Sephora products can attest – but she still needs to be tucked into bed with her favorite stuffed animal before she goes to sleep, wavering between childhood and the world which lies beyond.

Waiting for the light to change, I knew Natalie wouldn’t cross until I led the way, but I also knew one day, and very soon, she would no longer need to hold my hand. Feeling her pull on me, I knew my daughter was already chomping at the bit, straining to race towards the future’s promise. Sometimes we feel like we’re being pulled towards a future we cannot see or understand but, as I’ve gotten older, I cannot shake the sense that, instead of being pulled, I’m being drawn towards that mysterious horizon, yearning to see what comes next. I want to see Natalie grow up, get old with my wife, travel to new places, learn new things – to become more that I am now. In short, I never want the party to end. My child’s desire to grow up so fast is just that – desire – our attraction to what’s good for us, towards that which is true, good, and beautiful.

Grasping Natalie’s hand, I remembered the shock of wonder I felt when she was born – that she was her and that beautiful her was here – which got me thinking how any of us got here in the first place. The Book of Genesis says God fashioned the world from a dark and formless void – nothing – and then proclaimed his handiwork as good. How did he manage that trick? I think our desire to experience the future offers a glimpse at the answer.  If God is indeed existence, truth and goodness itself, then he is also indescribably and infinitely beautiful – a beauty so alluringly powerful that it evokes desire within that void of nothing, causing all there is to venture forth into being. Simply put, He’s too gorgeous to resist. As finite creatures, however, different from God’s “eternal now,” we can only experience that desire within “the moving image of eternity” which is time. For us God is absolute futurity, an infinity we can never traverse, but the very desire He evokes make us want to race across that distance between Him and us with abandon. We want to see what’s next, how it’ll all turn out, to become more – for the party to never end – which is, of course, eternal bliss. To steal a phrase, desire just isn’t the cause of our being; it is our being.

“Dad,” Natalie said. “Let’s go. The light’s green.”

As we crossed the street, Natalie let go of my hand but, when we reached the other side, she took it again because she wanted to. Sighing, I realized this was yet another gift in the long series of gifts that have been my life, and that my very desire for even more of these gifts is what’s propelling me across that infinite ocean of time. Now that I’m nearing sixty, I’ll admit the future sometimes fills me with fear but, at that moment, I caught a glimpse of its luminous promise, shimmering like the twilit clouds above.

“C’mon, Natalie,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

The post Crossing The Street appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Dancing Round & Round

A couple of weeks ago, the police called after hours to tell me they found family sleeping in their car. Small children were involved. “I’ll be right in,” I said. After getting buzzed into the police station, I got the skinny from the officer who found them. 

“Can we put them in a hotel?” he asked. 

“We have to,” I said. “The problem is none of the hotels around here want my people.” 

“Why not?” 

“Remember that guy we put in the Acme Motel last year? The one who OD’d? We had to break the door down.” 

“Oh yeah, I remember him.” 

“He also crapped and threw up all over the place and I had to pay five hundred bucks in damages. No wonder the owner stopped taking my people.” 

“Guys like that ruin it for everyone. So, what do you want to do?” 

“Take the money out of the petty cash,” I said. “I’ll authorize it. Then take them to a hotel. The staff are more likely to want to help you than me. Maybe so you’ll help them with a troublesome guest in the future.” 

“Got it.” 

Walking into the parking lot, the cop introduced me to the young family. It was a fairly typical situation; the father was working but couldn’t come up with enough scratch for a to stay in his apartment, blew what he had on a hotel, and now they were living in their car. Looking at the two kids in the backseat, I knew if my wife and daughter were in that situation, I’d lose my mind.

“Let’s go up to my office,” I told the father. “We’ve got food and baby supplies up there and your wife will know what you need.” So, we all marched into the municipal building and rode the elevator up to the food pantry. 

“What grade are you in?” I asked the little boy as the floor of the lift pressed against our feet. 

“Second,” he said. 

“Wow. And you’re a big brother too. That’s an important job. How old’s your sister?” 

“One.” Looking at the little girl in her mother’s arms, I felt a spurt of anger. No child should have to go through this.

“Okay,” I said, after opening up my office. “The first thing I do with everyone is give them a stuffed animal.” Hauling a basket filled with teddy bears, stuffed dogs, cats, elephants, and lord knows what else, I set the plushie menagerie on the floor and let the kids have at it. They were very happy. 

“A kitty and a bear,” I said. Excellent choices.” Then, as they kids played on the floor, I got down to the hard work of interviewing the parents. 

“The county won’t help us,” the mother, said. “They say they have nothing.” No surprise there. With Medicaid, Meals on Wheels, SNAP, and other programs all on the chopping block, charities public and private are struggling. My food pantry sees new people unable to feed their families every day. 

“We’ll try and figure something out,” I said. “But tonight, let’s just focus on your immediate needs.” So, I let the parents take what they wanted from my pantry and gave them gift cards to buy diapers, food and, because the dad had a long drive to work, gas. “And we have all sorts of personal care stuff in here,” I said, opening a cabinet. “Soap, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, razors, and feminine hygiene products.” When I mentioned the last item, I heard the mom draw a deep breath. She was about to cry. 

“Hang in there,” I said. “It’ll work out. Take what you need.” 

As the parents loaded a shopping cart with supplies, I looked at the one year old babbling as she played peek-a-boo with her new toy. “I like your earrings,” I said. “Very pretty.” Pulled out of her reverie by my voice, she looked up, fixed her innocent eyes on me, and smiled. Thinking of another family who once found no room at the inn, I was reminded why I do what I do. 

America is an ostensibly “Christian Nation” but, with all this “America First” stuff many churchgoers seem to be buying into, it’s amazing how many followers of Christ have hardened their hearts towards the poor and distressed with a sadism bordering on the diabolical. Even having empathy for other people is suspect for them. How did Catholic convert J.D. Vance put it? “There is a Christian concept,” he said, mangling the concept of ordo amoris, “That you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.” No wonder Pope Francis stroked out a couple of hours after meeting him. 

Jesus didn’t look at love as a finite resource to be parsimoniously doled out in expanding circles with you as the prioritized center. He said, “Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That was his Great Commandment, which last I checked, supersedes JD’s half-baked opinions about church teaching. (Converts, in their zeal, can often be like a kid with one karate lesson.) Jesus sought out the poor and despised and loved them with a love the world could not give but, when coming up against people like J.D. who opine, “Take care of what’s yours first,” how do you explain the “why” of that love to them? 

Last week was Trinty Sunday, when the church celebrates the oft misunderstood doctrine of the Holy Trinty – The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. On the face of it, saying God is three distinct “persons” yet still one God sounds awfully confusing and, for the sake of brevity, I won’t unpack the doctrine of the Trinty in detail here – mostly because some deep thinkers have explained it better than I ever could. But, usually to avoid the heresy of polytheism, I think there’s been an overemphasis on the “Oneness” of the Trinity at the expense of the “Three.” According to the doctrine, The Father, Son, and Sprit are distinct; different from each other. That’s important because it shows God contains difference within Himself in harmony and peace. So, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, it should come as no surprise that we are all different, analogous and diverse reflections of his splendor.  

Sadly, we humans have a hard time with the harmony and peace part. We view differences with suspicion, leading to the all too human impulse to take care of our own, to associate only with people who look, think, believe, and love like we do. That kind of thinking hardens hearts, destroys empathy, and makes charity almost impossible. But the love Jesus talked about is communal because God himself is communal, three in one, always different yet indivisibly one. Explaining that oneness, Ignatius of Loyola said it was like a harmonic chord, when three separate notes are played simultaneously to produce one sound. I, however, prefer to think of the Trinty as a dance, the loving flow of movement and touch between two dancers and the interplay of love and joy between them – and the Gospel is God’s invitation to dance with Him. 

As my wife can attest, I hate to dance – probably because I think it makes me look stupid – which is a shame because I’ve missed many opportunities for connection as a result. When it comes to loving others, charity, connection, that dance of the Lord, how many of us also worry about looking stupid? What will those in our “bubble” think if we reach out to those who are “different?” What will happen if, as is often the case with love, our efforts are rebuffed, our gift ignored, or took advantage of? Get burned a couple of times and you don’t want to get on that dance floor at all which, in the end, makes for a lonely life. But that invitation to partake in the Trinity’s dance is always there, always calling to us in differing ways. Every human being is a dance partner because, since God sanctified difference within Himself, each one of us, because of our differences, is a revelation of who God is. That’s why you have to love your neighbor – even when we think it sometimes makes us look weak, stupid, or foolish – because that dance of love is what makes us all one. As Jesus said, “Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us.” That’s not some “leftist inversion.” That’s the very life of God. 

Sitting in my office, I knew that little girl’s smile was my invitation to the dance. Today I was leading, and her family was following, but I knew others would be spinning me about too, round and round, all of us going back and forth, for the rest of my life. Sometimes you have to have the courage to hold out your hand and, on other days, the humility to take another’s  I think that’s a reflection of the Trinity too. 

Shopping finished, I helped the family load their supplies into their car and gave them directions to the hotel I’d secured for them. “Thank you again,” the mother said, holding her squirming daughter in her arms. 

“My pleasure,” I said. 

Then, when the mom began to walk away the baby, looking at over her mom’s shoulder, started crying, stretching her arms towards me, as if saying, “Don’t go! Don’t go!” Was that because I’d given her a toy? Because she somehow sensed I was nice to her parents? Or was it because a stranger had loved her, even if just for a moment? Listening to her cries, I wondered if some trace of that memory might follow her into adulthood and, when the time came, give her an unconscious push to help someone else. Who knows? Perhaps that’s all part of the dance too. 

Back in my office, I suddenly felt the desire to play Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring on my computer. Gazing out the window, I listened as the movement featuring the Shaker song “Simple Gifts” poured from my speakers. When I was a kid, one of my favorite church hymns was set to that tune. Maybe you remember singing it.

Dance, then, wher­ev­er you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all wher­ev­er you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

Smiling to myself, I thought about all the people who’d donated the food and money that made it possible for me to help that family. I often describe my job as being a “generosity coordinator” bringing donors together with needs and midwifing their generosity forth into the world.  But today I realized, in a very small way, I’d also played a small part in that Divine Choreography, that beautiful dance of difference and unity, which is the very love which brought everything that is into being. 

Not bad work if you can get it.

The post Dancing Round & Round  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Habemus Papam

I was riding back with a police officer from a welfare check when his cellphone pinged. “White smoke,” the cop said. “They picked the Pope.”

“On the fourth ballot,” I said. “Quicker than last time.” 

When I arrived at my office, I turned my computer to the news and watched as the Cardinal Proto-Deacon intoned the words, “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam!” 

“I announce to you a great joy,” I said, translating the words for my volunteers huddled around the screen. “We have a Pope.” Then, straining my ears, I listened as the cardinal got around to the “big reveal.”

“Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum,   Dominum Robertus Franciscus Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost qui sibi nomen imposuit Leone Decimumquatrum.” 

“Who?” one of my volunteers said. 

“They picked an American,” I replied, proud my rusty Latin held up. “Cardinal Robert Prevost. Now Pope Leo the Fourteenth.” 

“An American?”

“Unbelievable,” I said. 

When the new Pope came out on the balcony, by the way he was clasping his hands tightly in front of him, I thought he looked nervous. Then I recalled something a British cardinal said before the conclave, “Becoming pope is like a mini death.” When you become pope, life as you know it is over. 

“Three days ago,” I said. “You could’ve passed this guy on the street and not given him a second look. Now his entire life has changed.” 

“Why do popes change their name when they get elected?” my Lutheran volunteer asked. 

“They all used their birth names in the beginning,” I said. “That’s why you had popes named Zephyrinus, Dionysus and Lando. But when a guy named Mercurius got picked way back, he didn’t want his papal name to be that of a pagan god, so he changed it to John. Eventually the tradition stuck.”  Of course, being the top dog, Leo could have kept his birth name, but somehow “Pope Bob” doesn’t have quite the same zing.

I don’t speak Italian but, as the new pope addressed the crowd, I picked out the word “synodality” and his praise of the late Pontiff, Francis. I also noticed he was wearing the red mozzetta that Francis shunned when elected in 2013 and wondered if Leo was sending a message to the both the conservative and liberal elements in the church. That, although he might continue with many of his predecessors’ policies, he would be a more “traditional” than the freewheeling Francis. But that could be just me trying to read ecclesiastical tea leaves. 

“Interesting he picked the name ‘Leo,’” my Catholic volunteer said, “He was a social justice pope.” 

“Rerum Novarum,” I said, referring Leo XIII’s encyclical. “He wanted workers to get their fair share back then too.” I didn’t add that, in his youth as an administrator in the Papal States, Gioacchino Pecci also sicced soldiers on the Mafia resulting in a few fatalities. “But we’ll see what this pope does. I’m sure he’ll be his own man.” 

When I returned home, I fired up my computer and tabbed over to comment sections of some super-conservative Catholic websites and wasn’t surprised by what I found:

He will be an awful pope. 

The fix was in. 

Heretic. 

We’re doomed.

When John Paul II asked people to jump, the conservatives asked, “How high?” and then lambasted anyone who dissented with him as a “bad Catholic.” But when Francis said things that made them uncomfortable – like not being a slave to money, protecting the environment, welcoming migrants, giving communion to divorced couples, or being more pastoral to LGBT people – they had a conniption. But since they had said dissenting from papal edicts was intolerable, they pivoted to saying it was the pope who was “bad” or not truly pontiff at all. If that’s not a double standard I don’t know what is. But I’ve always thought it was interesting that the Jesus was crucified soon after he scourged the money lenders in the Temple. When you fuck with peoples’ money – or sense of certainty or comfort – they tend to take it badly. 

Whether Leo will be a pope in the style of Francis remains to be seen, but that hasn’t stopped that decidedly odd bunch of clericalized triumphalist lay people who pine for a return to the church of the Sixteenth Century from rendering judgment. To my mind, in their pedantic obsession with the rubrics of the Tridentine Mass, tantric quoting of obscure papal edicts, playing dress up in anachronistic vestments, and their zealous lip service to the “Magisterium” and  the “Deposit of Faith” they’ve turned the Church into idol engraved in Latin, far removed from the messy living, breathing “assembly” of real people whose purpose is  to not only proclaim the Gospel to all nations, but to try and live it too.

When I read the transcript of Pope Leo’s first sermon in the Sistine Chapel today, I was stuck by one thought in particular. Saying that, for many people, Jesus had morphed into some kind of superhero, Leo opined, “and this is true not only among non-believers but also among many baptized Christians, who thus end up living, at this level, in a state of practical atheism. For people who fear messiness and uncertainty, idols are very attractive. Idols don’t ask you to go outside your comfort zone, make life changing demands, confront your bullshit, or tell you to roll up your sleeves and get dirty serving the poor and afflicted. Idolatrous thinking just turns two millennia of Christian tradition into just another set of fashionable spiritual bric a brac not far removed from healing crystals, magical talismans, or astrology.

So, it should come as no surprise that some of these Catholics, like JD Vance, twist Church teachings to advance their own particular ideologies at the expense of the very people Jesus asked us to serve. Decrying the evils of the secular world, which are often things they don’t like, understand, or jive with their cohorts’ ideology, they seek to wall themselves behind the certainty of rituals and rules, pounce on perceived heresies, proclaim there’s no salvation outside Holy Mother Church, and then bury their heads in the sand until Jesus comes back and tosses all those pesky heathens into hell. 

Sorry to break it to you, but the Church has been a mess since Jesus got sucked up into the clouds two thousand years ago. To go into detail concerning the infighting, schisms, and theological and political conflicts that have raged since day one would take forever to enumerate, but the Church has never been one big happy family – which is no surprise because families are messy too. Pope Francis knew this, once saying, “In families, we argue; in families, sometimes the plates fly; in families, the children give us headaches. And I’m not even going to mention the mother-in-law.” The church is like any other family writ large – joyful, anxious, happy, resentful, selfless, dysfunctional, loving, guilt tripping, oddly bonded together, and often scared of change. The only real heresy is not to recognize this.

The word ‘Pope” come from the Latin word “papa” which means The Bishop of Rome is the “daddy” at the head of this huge wonderful squabbling mess. No wonder Leo looked nervous. When I came home from the hospital with my newborn daughter, I turned to my father-in-law and anxiously said, “What do I do now?” 

“Raise her,” he replied, with a grin. 

“How?” I wondered. The answer to that question, I have found, has been both simple yet unbelievably complex. Guiding Natalie through life I have looked to the example of my parents, friends who have kids, sought the guidance of experts and, truth be told, make it up as I go along. I suspect when Leo was on that balcony for the first time, looking at all those people looking to him for guidance, at least part of him was going, “Oh shit, what do I do now?”  He’s a like a new father too, but I’m sure his reaction will be much like mine – relying on tradition, the accumulated wisdom of the ages, his own personal experiences, and just plain winging it. It’ll be messy. He’ll screw up, stick his foot in his mouth, never make everyone happy but, like any good dad, he’ll try his best and, like me, pray someone is watching over him. Welcome to fatherhood buddy. Now everything changes. 

So, like Francis before him, I wish Pope Leo XIV well shepherding his huge, diverse, messy, and unruly flock. The dishes will fly, his kids will give him headaches and he’ll probably end up yelling, “You can’t go out looking like that!” but, in the end, I think he’ll love all his children the best he can. As long as he sticks with proclaiming the “Good News” and, like any good dad, “makes himself small” so his children can thrive, I think he’ll do a very good job. 

Habemus Papam! 

The post Habemus Papam appeared first on Waiter Rant.