ASP-HOLES

… and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp….

--Isaiah 11:7-8 (KJV).

(The following story has been slightly fictionalized to protect the guilty parties, but it is based on real events long ago.)

This story is not for the faint of heart nor for the intolerantly devout. There were three teenaged boys whose parents allowed them to sit together in church so long as they attended church. That was the ultimate goal as far as the parents were concerned. So, too, was it the objective for those determined, if not devout, young men. It fed their comradeship, even unto miserable, shared conditions.

Paying attention to the Bible readings and sermons was a struggle for a lot of folks who despised those who did not attend a church but who were not particularly attentive or engaged themselves therein. Those three teenagers were typical of their kind. While the preacher was intoning eloquently about this or that spiritual aspect, these young men’s’ minds were usually focused like laser beams on pussy or cars. Life for teenagers was fairly simple back then. What? You say it is not so different today? OK. It is good that there are certain constants in this crazy world.

So as most are sort of nodding off during the run-up to the sermon, which usually involved a Bible reading first, upon which the subsequent sermon would be based, the preacher reads the above verse from Isaiah, Chapter 11. That was the beginning of the end of the church comradeship.

One of the teens, in particular, was a very funny, very naughty, very easily amused young man. He shall be called by the name of “Tom” here, not his real name, however. Tom was a prankster and a joker. He was also very smart, but he was not particularly restrained in his exuberant reactions to stimuli.

One of the most widely shared disorders among humans in America is a case of what a friend calls the “church giggles.” You know what that is. That is when something normally not very funny happens to strike a common funnybone among two or more persons in church or some other inappropriate place, forcing the suffering persons to get to giggling almost uncontrollably over basically nothing. Soon the inappropriateness of the giggles themselves becomes the amusement, forcing even harder giggling, all by now beyond the control of the afflicted persons. Most all of us have suffered the affliction at one time or another.

That is what happened to Tom and his comrades.

When the preacher read the verse about the sucking child playing in the hole of the asp (what in the world was he sucking on, the boys also wondered?), Tom got to giggling and muttering about “asp-holes.” That is when the other two comrades became infected, and they all had their hands clamped firmly over their mouths while their backs and shoulders heaved rapidly in unison at the absurdity of the presence of “asp-holes” in the Bible, especially children playing in them! Adjacent worshippers were appalled.

WHEREUPON, at that very moment, there was yet another occurrence that drove the whole scene over the cliff like “Thelma and Louise.”

Tom farted. Loudly. In church.

It resonated like a foghorn against the wooden bench.

The dam broke. Whole villages were washed away, as was the comradeship.

The comrades could no longer restrain themselves, and as Tom kept repeating (loudly, by now) “Asp-holes! Asp-holes!” between guffaws, he was joined therein by open laughing from his weeping comrades.

That was the end. The parents of each boy were not amused. They were shamed and embarrassed. They probably had no idea what had started it all because they were probably not as attentive to the Bible reading as were the boys.

No matter. Thereafter each boy had to sit with his respective family under the tight, watchful eyes of the parents. Families worshipping together. Just like a Norman Rockwell painting. Or a George Lincoln Rockwell painting, depending on one’s point of view. Hitler Youth, come to Amerika.

No more “asp-holes.” Most likely the preacher, now deceased, never used that Bible verse again. The parents are now all dead, too. The comrades, long since separated by time and distance, have lost track of each other and are approaching their Social Security years. But they were tight as ticks once, and they were easily amused.