Nun
Hi there--Marie, right? It's okay, you can come in here if you want some career help. What you'd like to... What's that? Sorry, just speak up a bit if you can. Oh sure, there's no need to close the door. Probably after those cabbage rolls I just grabbed at the deli it's for the best.
So--what's that? Nun? Really? Hmm. I don't usually have much trouble figuring somethin' but... I guess I can give it a shot.
First of all, you'll need to finish high school. See if they can get you Latin by correspondence. Oh, plus take that civilization course where you learn the difference between Dorian and Ionic columns and stuff. In case you ever get to go see the pope, you might want to be able to make small talk.
You'll finish high school, and you'll eventually break the news to your parents. They won't take the hopes of grandchildren--wait, do you have any siblings? What? Thaaat Brandi? Oh, well I'm sure there will be a bunch of grandchildren then, though they may not all have the same... oh, sorry. That's your sister I'm talking about, I guess? What's that? I suppose she may go to hell, I don't think I'm the one to make that call. You seem kinda okay with it though.
You'll go to a convent and do whatever it takes to become an acolyte or something. I think maybe they take all your hormones out and put them in a jar or somewhere they won't bother you. Then they'll teach you nun stuff, I spose. Like the stations of the cross, and latin stuff, and the names of the saints. And maybe you'll be in one of those orders that don't talk, so you'll have to use sign language for "we're out of toilet paper" and stuff.
Eventually you'll be ready to take your vow or orders or whatever, but you'll make one last trip home first. While your grandmother--that's the old lady I in black I see you with downtown all the time, right? Oh, she's in mourning? When did he die? 1987? Ahh well, maybe she just liked the simplicity of the wardrobe. Anyway, while your grandmother might be happy, your parents won't be thrilled, and they'll have concocted a plot to change your mind.
You'll all go out to dinner, and your dad will slip a little something into your drink--nothing to make you pass out, just to help you loosen up a bit. Then skanky Brandi, er, your sister, will show up with an extra boy for you, and insist the two of you go dancing. You won't remember too much after that until you wake the next day and find a copy of a signed release for "Girls Gone Wild" stuffed in your back pocket.
You'll grab all the remaining possessions in your bedroom, throw them in garbage bags and drag them down to the local chapter of St. Vincent de Paul. Then you'll "forgive" your family by explaining that while you don't hate them, you'll probably never come home again.
Then, amid much weeping, you'll catch a ride back to the convent. You'll explain your tragic home visit to the Mother Superior, who will send you off to confession. You'll think the priest let you off easy saying a bunch of novenas, or whatever those are called, and so you'll secretly flog yourself with a skipping rope you grabbed from the nursery next to the convent.
A week later you get your first real nun outfit and they send you off to go work with the poor in Haiti. You succumb to seven different tropical diseases during the first six months of your stay, and finally once you're feeling better you're kidnapped by a band of anti-government guerillas who hold you and two other nuns captive.
The time with the kidnappers would be worse if they weren't catholics underneath all their revolutionary rhetoric. Or maybe it's just that I don't want to scare you away from the job, since I kind of think that might earn me some bad juju with the big guy upstairs.
Anyway, eventually the Vatican will part with some money quietly and get you and the other nuns back. You'll be shipped back to the states where you'll be assigned to a parish to work at a convent school. You'll enjoy teaching and helping out at the church, gardening and such.
Eventually, though, you'll develop some worrisome fears about one priest and the young boys who keep coming around for extra altar boy practice. You go to the mother superior of your convent, Sister Alberto (why do the important ones always have guy names?) and she'll scold you for having an evil and suspicious mind.
The next week you're shipped off to Italy where you get a desirable position as a Vatican tour guide. Seems that priest was connected and this is your quiet relocation in hopes that you'll keep your mouth shut. You like the new job, the prestige and the proximity to his Holiness.
Still, your conscience bothers you, and all the skipping ropes in the Vatican preschool won't fix that. You write a letter to the bishop who oversees your former parish, but he sends back a curt rejection of your allegations. Finally you send an anonymous letter to the newspaper back home.
An investigative reporter digs around a bit, and eventually reveals the truth. Before the police can arrive, the priest commits suicide. Because of a variety of past coverups, a shrewd lawyer for the family of one boy gets a subpoena for all the parish records, and finds evidence that you made some "wild accusations" before you were sent to the Vatican.
Within six months a lurid court case is under way and although the Vatican's legal team tells you you don't have to go, you choose to return to the States and testify at the civil trial--six families are suing the church for a combined total of ninety million dollars.
The day before you are supposed to testify, you receive an anonymous phone call. A mysterious voice explains that while they wish you no harm, if you choose to go ahead, your credibility must be destroyed.
You testify, quietly, tears rolling down your cheeks. That night, a mysterious videotape is delivered to a variety of news agencies showing your "Girls Gone Wild" shenanigans from almost a decade before. Not only do you disgrace yourself in the traditional exhibitionist style of the program, but this is the unedited clip which includes you singing a song that could only be described as blasphemous and ends with performing a lewd dance routine with a statue of the blessed virgin that your sister had brought along in her purse for the occasion.
Suddenly the tide turns against you--"Crusading Nun, or Sacreligious Harlot?" proclaims the Knights of Columbus News Review. While it is a small paper that is little more than a mouthpiece of the church, its story is picked up by a bunch of lazy internet news servers and soon you're the topic of several late night television monologues.
A church spokesman later explains that your carnal behavior is the real reason you were sent to Europe. It is a blow to the case of the litigants, and they end up settling for a fraction of their original asking price--seems the public somehow has lumped the skanky nun and the shyster lawyers together as part of some shady plan to profit from tragedy.
Eventually you beg to join the mission in Calcutta started by the late Mother Teresa, but they reject you and you settle for a job as housekeeper for a small convent in the mountains of Switzerland. When you fall from a cliff while out walking one day, no one is really sure if your death is an accident or suicide.
Oh, yeah--peace be with you too, kid.
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