Tales from Small-Town Saskatchewan: Ass Wednesday
My Aunt Frieda is very Catholic, and the folks around town do like to tease the Church Ladies sometimes. For the purposes of this story, I must also remind you that Aunt Frieda is also a pyromaniac of sorts.
A few years ago, she was travelling back home from Speedy Creek on the bus, and the bus driver (also from our town) asked her, "So, are you going to go see the strippers in the Mendtam Bar?" (Small-town bars will occasionally bring in strippers for a one-night show to make some money).
"Strippers in the Mendtam Bar?? During Holy Week??!??", she squeaked with horror.
"Yeah," he said, "They're calling it 'Ass Wednesday'."
I heard about this on the phone a few weeks later. Aunt Frieda likes to be scandalized by shocking behaviour, and then likes to tell about it over and over again, with relish. This was my favourite part of our phone conversation:
Aunt Frieda thundered, with tones of the apocalypse, "And then a few days later, the Mendtam Bar BURNED TO THE GROUND." Ah, the smugness of the Church Lady.
That's my Aunt Frieda.
4 Comments:
I love how Aunt Frieda stories seem so unbelievable, yet they are true.
In fairness, I must say that I do not believe Aunt Frieda burned down the bar herself, but the coincidence of Wrath-of-God Church Lady + pyromaniac + tragic fire is, to me, uncanny.
Omigoodness, I just realized you spelled Mendtam wrong. Is that on purpose perhaps?? Attempting to stay under the www radar, even subconsciously?
Y'know, what we need here are stories of the boarding school run by nuns that we attended, Ms. Valedictorian.
No, no, the spelling was a very conscious decision. Can you imagine trying to find the real 'Mendtam' in Google, and discovering that THIS is the representation to the world of what it's like there? They'd sure be thinking of me fondly if that happened.
Yeah, convent stories. I'm gearing up for some of those. Thanks for the tip, Bean.
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