Humor

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The School of the Prophets and Prophetesses
© 2004 Josprel
Personal Humor by Josprel

© 2004 by Josprel (Joseph Perrello)
[email protected]

The School of the Prophets and Prophetesses
by
Josprel

We all had our own reason for being there. Presumably, the teachers were there to teach, though at times I wondered about that. Most of the boys were there to escape the draft. The vast majority of the girls were there to snare husbands. And more than a few were there because they claimed they had experienced a supernatural "call" to the ministry; moreover, almost everyone of them also testified to having received a heavenly commission to a particular missionary field -- the Far East, India, Venezuela, Guatemala, ad infinites. From among the many who made such claims in the years before my graduation, only several couples actually became missionaries - most of them not to the nations to which they allegedly received calls. I assume the others either were disobedient to their heavenly callings or had them withdrawn when they married spouses evidently called to America.

Often, the called ones would snootily inquire about my calling. I always cringed at this question, since it invariably stumped me and put me on the defensive. The claims of these super-spiritual giants, who actually could hear God's voice directing them to study foreign languages, when most of them couldn't even pass English, seemed marvelous to me. They made me feel slighted by God, since I didn't know where I was called. I didn't even know why I was among the fledgling prophets and prophetesses, but it certainly wasn't to attract a spouse. My pastor clinched that when he warned me to watch out for the girls at the school. When I asked the reason for the warning, he informed me that the girls were there to snare husbands. No second warning was necessary. I was far from ready to be a husband, especially the husband of one the fledgling prophetesses, with their mandated full-sleeved blue dresses, hemmed six inches from the ground and decorated with wide crimson neck bows. The outfits made the girls look like clones from one genetic cell.

As intended by the school administrators - supposedly still plagued by pangs of guilt over their own youthful indiscretions - it required a keenness of imagination on the part of the boys, to envision what the female bodies covered by those uniforms were like. Still, the prophetesses-in-the-making were given to the practice of coy, flirtatious, sidelong, glances at the male counterparts of their choice. It was all so beneath the dignity those who claimed they were destined to turn the world upside-down for God - so mundane!

Since I recently had completed three years of active Air Force duty, with thirty months overseas, I certainly wasn't there to escape the draft. And since I chose never to "walk down the lane" with a fledgling prophetess, I sure wasn't there in search of a mate. Because of this, the student prophetesses saw me as a haughty, arrogant, stuck-up, standoffish snob. This was a cruel blow to my fragile ego; after all I was only dutifully following my pastor's admonition! In the Air Force, I issued orders to those under me, and also followed the orders of my superiors. It was my considered opinion that, as my superior in the Lord, my pastor had issued me what amounted to an order I translated into: "Joseph, be on constant guard and vigilant against those man-hungry, husband-hunting, snare-laying, lasso-tossing, females!"

Was it any wonder that I drifted to the far side of the walkways whenever one passed by?

One day, a student prophet, who regularly spent his lunch hour in his room praying for a call, suddenly heard a voice saying, "AAAfriicaa, AAAfriicaa, you are called to AAAfriicaa. Wheeen youuu arriiive theeere I'll teeell youuuu what you must doooo."

This so enraptured the call-seeker that he yelled at the top of his voice, "Yes, Lord! I hear you, Lord! I'll go to Africa if you open the door for me! Oh, thank you, thank you, Lord!"

Of course, he was unaware his constant pleas for a call provided grist for the prank mill of his not-so-reverent roommate, who issued a call to him while hidden in the closet. When the roommate shared his prank with other student prophets, they advised him to inform the call seeker of it, least he quit school and actually travel to Africa. The call-issuing student prophet did so and - teachings on forgiveness not withstanding - his roommate became his former roommate when the call-seeker asked to be assigned to another room. Until the end of his time at the school, the chagrined, erroneously called student prophet never again spoke to the call-giver.

As an Air Force veteran, I counted several other war veteran student prophets among my close friends. Many of these war veteran fledgling prophets were married and lived in on-campus, family cottages provided by the seminary. Blessed to be ball-and-chained to spouses who did not considered themselves prophetesses, they occasionally invited me and other single veterans for a meal at their cottages. On one such occasion, we were served chicken and dumplings with all the trimmings. After the meal, we complemented our hostess and accepted our host's invitation to relax with him on the front veranda.

"So you guys really enjoyed that meal?" he asked.

"Of course, Al," one of us replied, "It was delicious." And we all agreed.

"I'm glad. The school food is good, but not as good as home cooked." Again, we heartily agreed.

For a while, we sat listening to the relaxing chirps of the crickets.

Then Al said, "I invite you here from time-to-time because you guys deserve at least some home-cooked meals. You say you really enjoyed this one?"

We again assured him we did, but couldn't figure out why he kept asking us the question. Al never before quizzed us about the meals.

"Do you know which chickens you ate?" This time I responded.

"What do you mean, Al?"

"Well, do you remember those three tiny chicks my kids brought back from Easter vacation?"

We all remembered.

"And do you remember the plague of inchworms we just had?"

We remembered that, too. Little green inchworms were everywhere - hanging from gutters, inching into every crevice on the school grounds, crawling along pavements, monopolizing benches, infiltrating classrooms through opening only they could locate, creeping along lawns, swinging by silken threads from trees and - not bashful about entering students' rooms - earned loud screeches from the student prophetesses. Quite an accomplishment for tiny green caterpillars!

Even automobiles were not immune to the invaders. I was one of only two unmarried students who owned a car. I didn't dare leave the windows opened even a crack; the inchworms would have gained a hasty access to my car's interior.

In an amused tone, Al concluded, "Well, put those chicks and those inchworms together and what do you come up with?"

We immediately understood what he was saying, though we wished we didn't. The chickens we found so delicious were fed a diet of inchworms. After being fed this information, I am certain our faces turned as green as those inchworms. However, we continued to accept Al's generous dinner invitations; after all, he and his family also had eaten the inchworms fed chickens.

Work scholarships were supplied to student prophets and prophetesses in need of financial assistance with tuition and board. Since the G.I Bill of Rights provided all the expenses for my schooling and then some, I needed no other assistance. However, as already mentioned, I was one of two unmarried student prophets who owned a car, so the administration asked me to drive to the town post office six times weekly to pick up the school's mailbags, because the other unmarried car owner refused the task.

At first, I also declined the task, since it would occupy my Saturdays, the only free day I had. Nevertheless, taking advantage of my gentle, generous, cooperative and magnanimous disposition, the administration slyly manipulate me into compliance by insisting that I was refusing to do the "Lord's work." After they brainwashed me into their way of thinking on the topic, I meekly consented. What especially irked me was their not even offering to supply gas for my car, though I would have refused the offer, had it been made. It irritated me that the administration took for granted that, because I was an unmarried veteran, they could impose on my finances that way.

I noticed they look after their own school auto expenses, however. Whenever the faculty and staff did a driving chore for the school, they always turned in an expense voucher, no matter how short the trip. In my opinion, that set an extremely bad example to an innocent, unknowing, naïve, unsophisticated, undemanding, pastor-obeying, student prophet in his very early twenties. Didn't they know that their unfair actions on auto expenses spoke so loud I could no longer hear what they said? So cruelly did they stumble innocent me that, from then on, whenever a faculty member spoke at chapel services, I dozed, dreaming of a retribution that never came. If not for my super-spirituality, incomprehension, natural Mediterranean misunderstanding of what could never be understood, I would have quit my prophet-business studies and become the only Sicilian Greek monk in Tibet - I was that stumbled!

I especially disliked that student prophetesses did all our laundry. Each student was required to write his or her name somewhere on a piece of laundry sent for washing at the school's laundry facility. This was somewhat embarrassing for me. When stationed State-side with the Air Force, I always had my laundry washed by anonymous civilians who operated our airbase laundries. When I served overseas, unknown native workers hired by the Air Force washed our laundry for us. I could walk anywhere on base and pass a laundry worker, never recognized as someone whose clothes the worker had cleaned.

Not so at the Green Lane school of the prophets and prophetesses. There the student prophetesses washed the laundry and knew the owner of each item, since they could read our names indelibly printed on the clothing. It wouldn't have been so bad if all they washed were our outer garments, plus socks and handkerchiefs. But noooooooooo, they washed all our undergarments, too. Whenever one of the laundry student prophetesses happened to glance my way, she seemed to give me a knowing look, pondering a scheme to deprive me of my unwedded bliss. I know this makes it appear that I considered myself a "catch," but please believe me I do not. I was afraid of being caught like a fish flopping at the end of a fishing-line. After all, I had never been married before. What did I know of the holy state of matrimony, other than having observed some of my friends who were heading in that direction? I thought of making heroic attempts to rescue them, but my courage failed in the presence of their future spouses. It took me quite a while to get over my sense of guilt for this cowardliness.

No doubt, the fact that most of my student prophet buddies were married tended to colored my imagination of the "You know I washed the most intimate of your clothing, so don't you think we should get married and share out lives together?" glances I attributed to the laundry student prophetess. I was paranoid and could think of nothing to do about it, other than transfer to different school, hoping my pastor understood.

He didn't!

When I phoned him to reveal my concerns, he pontificated, "Joe, you survived several battles of the war! Are you now permitting a bevy of predatory student prophetesses to route you from your studies? I'm surprised, ashamed, annoyed, disappointed, sorrowful, stunned, shocked, chagrined, mortified, humiliated, affronted, vexed, slighted, and offended, by your decision. How many more descriptive verbs must I bombard you with to define my feelings regarding your transfer to another school of the prophets and prophetesses?

"Do you actually think an interesting, handsome, friendly, personable, pleasant, attractive, good-looking, eye-catching, likable, amiable, cordial, sociable, genial, affable, easygoing, jovial, congenial, fellow such as you are will fare better with the student prophetesses at a different school? No, of course not! Some men are blessed with bland personalities. You and I, however, are burdened with the trials of attracting womanly attention and admiration. It's a burden we must endure to the end of our days on earth."

"But that's not fair!" I protested, "Why should I be selected to bear such a burden? Why can't I be an average Joe like other student prophets? Why must I endure the hungry glances of student prophetesses, when other student prophets do not?"

"Only God knows, Joe. Hang up now. Remember, this is a long distance phone call."

Needless to say, the call to my pastor solved nothing, nor did his multi-descriptive analysis of my personality, especially when he placed himself in the same category as me, saying we must endure the burden of womanly glances for the rest of our days. It was easy for him to talk; he's close to eighty-seven years old, due for his promotion to glory - or elsewhere - at any moment. On the other hand, if the Lord permits me to live out my three-score and ten, I'll be around for a while.

But hallelujah - I've solved the problem! No longer am I compelled to endure what my pastor called, the "womanly attention and admiration" of student prophetesses. I've moved to the Amazon jungle. All I need fend off now are the attempts of these giant Amazonian women to capture and enslave me. I gotta run now; I can hear them stomping after me through the jungle again.
-30-


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