"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; What the pastor doesn't do the assistant must."
My Dad often quotes this pithy little saying remembered from the days when he was an assistant to Pastor Hauff, a position fraught with many responsibilities and very little recognition in comparison to pastor.
But I am a girl so it is not like I would ever be a pastor. Sure, there are women pastors but generally of the few that exist, most are are married. Single women don't get much respect without a husband. Anyway, I am not the pastor's assistant so I do not have to do that. I am not on staff so just because the pastor says it, that does not mean that I must. Susie might be on staff but I am not.
So I am not required to continue acting out this silly script. I may have had my stupid moments but I do not want those stupid moments to define my entire life. I was only passing through on my way to somewhere else. I am just a wayfaring stranger, as they say so will someone please turn it off now?
The services of a Justice of the Peace are not required in this context, and anyway, just because the original Mr. Tracy served in that position in Norwich, Conn., in the 1650s, Dale probably could not be construed as qualified for such office in the present tense as the Tracy descendants have fallen to dim reflections of the originals. I am just speculating because I do not know where this silly script came from or what the point might be.
The "Must" rule should not be confused with that ditty often heard in girls' dormitories: "I must, I must, I must increase my bust." Increasing the bust is impossible without surgery and who needs all that scar tissue anyway? No, I am not required to increase my bust. Or am I?
Once you get to a certain point of indebtedness, you just have no choice but to increase your bust. We must increase our national indebtedness to pay for all this nonsense.
Which reminds me of the little thing that Lynda wrote in my sophomore yearbook just before she graduated and left school never to return. It was nice of Lynda to write something in my yearbook but her instructions are too complicated, a burden too heavy to bear. Says Lynda: "You have a lot to give so don't hold back." Excuse me, Lynda, but you are too forward so are you trying to say that I should be more like you? If so, then your instructions are impossible to follow because I cannot be like you and continue to be me. It is one or the other, Lynda or me, and not both.
Lynda says that Del Taco got richer because of us. Actually it was her idea to go there and her car that got us there. If it were left to me I would have a lot more money left in the bank, thank you very much, but if I must do whatever Lynda says then I get poorer and poorer.
Lynda says: "Bust out next year and show this school up." Wow, thanks for cursing me. It is either boom or bust but Lynda decrees a bust for me. I see no boom on the horizon, unfortunately, just years of drudging slavery to the pastoral musts, Lynda being the daughter of a pastor and thus supposedly in charge.
But this is a must bust only if I take Lynda seriously. If only I could just shrug off this heavy burden. If only. If only. If only I were sane and could kick Lynda's butt across the globe. I would not want to be such an old maid as Lynda, who practically tromps around in army boots and stupid hat. She is not the model of anything that I would want to be, although you just don't tell your friends what you really think of them even if they ask unless you no longer care to keep them as friends in which case you dump them. They are just your friends and not role models, please.
(Which reminds me that Lynda knows all the details of how Warren dumped Rose Wilson. I did not get the details, just heard something happened and the Wilsons were mad but the Wilsons are always mad about something and they have the connections to make your life miserable thereafter. I heard that Rose lives in South Carolina where she probably has some connections to South Florida, not that I would know.)
To clarify, Lynda is the one who always talks about wanting to take automotive maintenance classes so she can tune up her own car. I am the one who would rather pay someone, an automotive expert, who knows what they are doing, thank you very much.
