Firestarter

In first grade I was in love with Tracey O. She had long hair…therefore she was hot. So, I did what any normal first grader would do, every night before I went to bed, I prayed that she would start coming to my church.

I’m not sure why I wanted to subject her to my church, because I was not fond of it. In fact, I used to root for one of my family members to get sick, because that meant we all could stay home. But, I vaguely remember there being some kind of directive from our pastor, the esteemed Dr. Alan Combover, to invite others to church. I immediately thought of Tracey, but I couldn’t just ask her to come to church with me out of the blue. I had never talked to her and that seemed like a weird pick up line.

Instead, I prayed for God to deliver a hot little first grader to Christ Church. Much to my surprise, God responded. Tracey’s church caught on fire and her congregation started meeting with ours. It was odd enough that there was a fire at her church. But, the fact that out of all the churches in town, they started meeting with us still seems unbelievable.

You see, our church met in an old folk’s home…nothing like the smell of death to get you in the mood to praise the Lord. Dr. Combover knew his audience…the sermons were geared toward the almost dead. Rather than have their only son literally die of boredom, my parents let me bring a book to read while Combover spoke. One week I brought the phone book…not the interesting phone book. I brought the white pages.

But, church became a lot more appealing when there was a chance that I’d get a glimpse of Tracey on Sunday morning. Our congregation met early, Tracey’s met late and we shared a coffee and donut fellowship time in between services. I literally could not believe my eyes when I walked in and saw Tracey for the first time.

Remember this old Pepsi commercial? That’s what it was like. Tracey was Cindy Crawford, except 10 times hotter. She was eating a donut, instead of drinking a Pepsi. I looked exactly like the kid with his mouth open. And the antique cars in the background of the commercial were reminiscent of the vintage ladies of John Knox Village whose varicose veins were somehow visible through their extra dark panty hose.

It was surreal. God wasn’t the Dude I’d heard about in the bore-the-hell-out-of-you sermons. He was on call to start fires for me so that I could be near the girl of my dreams. If it had been a movie, I would have sauntered up to Tracey and swept her off her feet with a line like, “Hey baby, howsabout I get that powdered sugar off your lips…with my lips.” Instead, I froze up and didn’t say a word.

Today I realized that I’m still that little wiener boy. God answered my prayer to get fired from my accounting job and here I am, still sitting on the sideline like a schoolboy. I need to finish writing my script and stop being the scared little Nancy boy who refused to go after his dream (girl) even though it’s been gift-wrapped and dropped on my doorstep. The DaVinci Code made over $200 million and it wasn’t even that funny. There’s no telling how much more a film would bring in that features me cracking the urinal code. It will no doubt become the Titanic of office men’s room comedies. The problem is, I’m completely out of money.

Dear God,
Please send a benefactor to finance my project.
Thanks,
Matt H. Wonder

If you’re rich and don’t respond, you might want to check your smoke detectors.