The pathway to Hell

Middle school playground

 "The pathway to Hell is paved with good intentions" is the standby quote for people who have really dropped the ball.

Well my great intention tonight was to help with the middle school boy's retreat at our church. For starters, this isn't entirely new, I have been sort of helping with the youth but both my schedule and my skills are way under-par to be good at it. But the church needs volunteers, especially ones not afraid of middle school kids, so I packed up my son Sam and we ventured to the church to score me some heavenly points.

It went so well that I was inspired to write this post that I will call:

How to go to Hell in 4 easy steps.

1- Expose the kids to vulgarity.
Yep, that's how I kicked things off tonight. Sam and I arrived at the church for boy's night and met up with Nick. Nick is the guy who planned the evening and is pretty much the Elvis Presley of middle school activities. The boys immediately all formed a tight circle around him, clamoring for his attention while I was reminded of my PE days when even the teacher didn't care whether I was picked. Side note: being "manager" for dodge ball sucks.
At any rate, Nick and the his merry band of tweeners all started walking to our dinner location. When we crossed a street, a man in a car asked "What side is the street is?"
What follows is my internal dialogue which horrifies me to actually read on paper.

"GO AWAY DAD!"

"Hmmm, that's a bizarre question. That guy must be really lost and need my help. I do have 6 middle school boys with me so... what could possibly go wrong if I engage in a conversation with him?"
"Say that again?" and he did.
"WHAT SIZE IS YOUR PENIS?" followed by howling laughter is what the boys were treated to, courtesy of me.

2- Lose some kids.
This is a no-brainer. When you are in charge of kids, you should return the same number you were given. We had 6 kids when we went to dinner and 5 when we returned. I have no idea what happened but Nick was in charge so it's his problem. I briefly mentioned my concerns to him but he was unruffled. "Dude (he really is cool), I go by the 80% rule. 5 out of 6 is probably more than that so we're good." We had only 5 kids the rest of the night. For real.

3- Let the kids trample sacred ground.

Jesus, you are so it. Start counting.

I have no idea what's sacred in a church but I pretty much think, you know, everything? Now probably not the toilets, maybe not the storage closets, but really everything else. Surely there is a Bible verse that says something like, "This is my house so don't treat it like a freakin' bowling alley." Well Nick decided that it was time to play manhunt (once again, "Yeah Nick! Benji please go away") which is a game of running full speed through the entire church. Nick's only rule was, "Don't hurt the pipes in the pipe organ." I'm no lawyer but since all middle school boys are, I'm pretty sure the door was left open for vandalism, theft, arson etc. So my job quickly became wandering around the church trying to keep the boys from sinning-by-destruction. The lowest point was when I witnessed a kid throw himself at a painting of Jesus believing that the Son of Man was actually a 5th grade peer whom he just found. Jesus (like all paintings do) kept his eyes only on me and he mouthed the words "I'm going to remember this."

4- Let the kids devour the Body of Christ.
Churches have lots of rules that I neither know nor would understand. Apparently one is, "If you serve the sacrament of communion in church, don't clean it up." Which in our case meant that 5 (after we had jettisoned 1) hooligans found free food. Never have I felt the hot breath of Satan on my neck like I did watching them dig into the leftover bread and grape juice. Nick of course quickly restored order (after having some himself because that's what cool guys do) and I was left trembling in the back.

This one sealed my fate.

So to sum things up, I'm doomed and I hate Nick. Yet my son Sam had one of the best evenings of his short life. The other 9 in his top 10, all involve XBox and so for tonight I'm grateful. I'm going to keep dragging him to all church events even if it means my eternal damnation.