My friend Jeanne, over at The Raisin Chronicles suggested I enter this year's Erma Bombeck essay contest, so I did. That was back in January and I still haven't heard from the judges yet, so I guess what I wrote sucked. But Jeanne just posted her entry to her blog, and it prompted me to post mine. Jeanne, you're an 'influential', and that's a good thing!

I give you my entry to the Erma Bombeck essay contest:

Walking the fine line between being a preacher’s kid and trying to be normal in a secular world is like putting French fries between your toes and jumping rope. It ain’t pretty.

Picture it. Your parents, a couple of Southern hill folk, get married, move North and find Jesus, Brylcreem and Aquanet. Soon after, your father enters Bible college to become a preacher, and your mother spends her days raising three precious cherubs, hosting Tupperware parties and honing her Sunday School teaching skills.

Growing up, my family was part of a religious cult...er, I mean a wonderful organization that moved ministers around from time to time. I spent most of my childhood living in such chic podunk communities as Quarryville, Pennsylvania. It wasn’t exactly Disney World, but playing hide-and-seek in a cornfield and tossing cow patties at your sister’s head is certainly up there.

Sunday school, Worship Service, Sunday night service, Wednesday Prayer Meetin’ and Thursday Youth Club left me with little idle time to do the Devil’s work. However, I did manage to make good use of what little free time I did have. If I wasn’t running around singing ‘The Diarrhea Song’ or flashing my tighty whities at my siblings, I could be found lighting pretend cigarettes or wildly gyrating my hips watching Solid Gold.(I had a thing for Marilyn McCoo.)

You know, making up for all those adolescent years I spent Bible thumping.

Throughout my journey through the secular world, I’ve found that religious folk are kind people, but they do sometimes falter. They aren’t always as perfect as a scrubbed-up parson on one of those flashy television shows.

In fact, whenever I see a Holy Roller preacher protest too much about immorality, I think to myself, I bet he’s wearing nothing but a thong under that choir robe.