Communion Wafers for Lunch

When I was in college, I dated the sweetest, most generous guy ever. The only downside was the fact that he was a Catholic Republican. This would have worked out fine if I had similar views, but I have always been a liberal atheist.  Well, at that time I was more of a fence-sitting agnostic. I even got baptized during my first year of college. All of that hell fire and brimstone talk had gotten to me. Plus, two of my best friends in the dorm were churchgoers. I thought maybe I should just have some water sprinkled on me. What could it hurt?

So, on Easter of 1990, I was baptized in the Episcopalian church. 

The Episcopal denomination is kind of like Catholic-Lite, in my opinion. Some of the rituals are similar, but the priests can marry, and gay people are more than welcome. There was communion, too, only in my church at the time, it included real bread and everyone was welcome to partake, not just those who had been baptized, confirmed, and scanned for demons.

One Sunday, during my sophomore year of college, I decided to go to church with my boyfriend.  I’m still not sure why I didn’t just stay home and go out to lunch with him AFTER church, but I went. Surprisingly, the steeple did not cave in when I walked through the door. All was going okay until communion time came around. I got up to go get my free cracker, as I had always done at the Episcopalian church, and boyfriend grabbed my arm and said, “You can’t do that.”

I snorted and gave a winning bitch face, complete with fully furrowed brow, and said, “Why?”

Boyfriend explained that I couldn’t take communion because I had not been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church. I rolled my eyes and told him I had been baptized in the Episcopalian church and that was Catholic Lite.  Good enough. Plus, I was hungry. 

So, I pulled away from him and marched my little hangry ass up to get my cracker and wine. I wasn’t even 21 yet at the time, so the wine was a real treat.  Okay, I am lying with that wine part. I drank all the time before I was 21, but this was MORNING wine. Very taboo. I could feel boyfriend’s glare on the back of my head the whole way up the aisle and back to our pew. 

After the service ended, and we were walking back to boyfriend’s car, he asked me why I had taken communion.  He told me how rude and horrible that was. He spoke to me like I had gutted a kitten on the altar and flung it at the priest. I rolled my eyes. A LOT.

“What is the big deal?  No one knew I wasn’t Catholic.  I don’t have a sign on my head,” I said, with my hands on my hips. That cracker was not enough to calm my hanger.  Clearly, I needed to eat before I smacked him.

“It doesn’t matter.  You just can’t do that,” he said, offering no explanation, at least no real explanation.  I looked away, rolled my eyes, and bit my lips shut.  I decided not to argue with him about religion.

We went out for lunch afterwards, and boyfriend was quiet the whole way to the restaurant.  I never took communion again. In fact, I never went to church with this boyfriend again. We broke up about a year later.  

I’ve grown up since then. Well, I’m still only five feet tall, but I’m more mature. I ended up marrying a liberal, not so religious man. My husband is a self-described “recovering Catholic.”

Whenever I go to church with his family, I sit politely and move my legs to the side so everyone else in the row can go take communion. I use this time to slip a piece of candy or a small cookie from my purse to my mouth.  This way I’m not tempted to sneak up for a dry cracker.

Lisa Petty is a former stand-up comedian who decided she would rather just write funny stuff after years of dealing with drunk people. When she is not cracking inappropriate jokes, Lisa is an online English professor. You can read more of her snarkasm on Petty Thoughts.  If you like humor and cat pictures, you can follow Lisa on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.