Losing My Religion

Reading Evil Julz post the other day about losing her Catholic school memories reminded me of my childhood days of being raised in a Catholic family. I was lucky that I never actually went to Catholic or parochial schools myself but I was forced to go to Catechism classes on Saturdays. Although neither of my parents were particularly religious, with my mom being more so than my dad, I was sent to those classes so that I would at least be taught the basics of the religion.

For those that don't know, Catechism is basically just Bible study given by nuns in a classroom where they beat into you teach you the basics of God, the writings of the Bible and the fundamentals of the church. The school that I went to I like to call "Our Lady of Corporal Punishment" and boy did they like to dish it out! I was very mischievous and rebellious as a child, always getting into some kind of trouble. Even though I wasn't always the instigator, trouble just seemed to follow me around like a black cloud of evil. Most people probably have this notion that nuns are very sweet and kind people like the one portrayed by Sally Field on the old TV series. But, I can tell you from personal experience that these women are absolutely EVIL!!!
I once got punished for not paying enough attention in class. They would usually whack you across the hand with a ruler and or send you to stand with your nose in the corner at the front of the class.

Amazingly, later in the same class I was punished again for "staring" at the same nun! I was apparently now paying too much attention!! How wrong is that!? Of course, she probably thought I was the "devil spawn" and I was giving her the evil eye, hoping a death ray would magically appear and send her off to meet her maker. But hey, that's beside the point!
Another incident was the first time I ever encountered the word "f**k". I had seen it written on the wall in the boys restroom and had absoulutely no idea what it meant. I innocently raised my hand in class and asked the nun out loud, "Sister Mary, what does the word "f**k" mean?" Well, you would have thought that I had just peed on the pope's hat by the reaction I got, I was arm wrestled out of the classroom, yelled at, paddled, dragged to the office, scolded and sent home without anyone actually explaining to me what I had actually done wrong other than "Never, ever say that again!! It's a "bad" word!! God will punish you!!" LOL

But my favorite incident was caused by two litle girls that sat in the row next to me. You know how when you are sitting down in a chair and the front of your pants bulges up, making a fold across your zipper? There's not actually anything in there but I suppose that it looks like there's something poking up. One of the girls reached across the aisle and poked me there with a ruler and said out loud "I know what's in there!". Of course, they both started giggling very loudly, but what they didn't know was that the nun had seen her do it! Guess who got in trouble? That's right, ...ME!! I got a good ass paddling for that one and I didn't do a thing! Sister Mary acted as though I had instigated it somehow and the 2 girls were just too sweet and innocent to have done such a naughty thing on their own!!

Those were just a few of my worst experiences but there were plenty more! It seemed like I was always in trouble!