Baptism 101

We receive the invitation to baby grandsons christening and on the designated day we make our way to the church at the appointed hour. As we are not regular church goers we are surprised to see a full house at what we thought was simply a small family affair. We managed to squeeze into the last pew and there we stood and sat, stood and sat, stood and sat throughout what turned out to be a full mass and not a baptism at all.With no sign of our 'baby' and assorted kin, we joined the long line of people edging way too slowly towards the exit. As we finally approach the door, imagine our surprise when we see 'our' baby along with his parents,numerous godparents and assorted guests. They smile at us and suddenly the proverbial light bulb turns on. The invitation said 12:30 and we the dimwitted grandparents took the invitation quite literally never suspecting a ruse, a baptismal scam, a trick to get us to sit through a mass while everyone else involved, was 'in the know' and got to spend an extra 90 minutes relaxing at home. The church is now virtually a ghost town except for 3 babies -dressed to the nines in assorted bonnets, satin booties, bloomers and flowing capes..all in white except for 'our' little guy clad in elegant black pinstripes; pants,vest and wee black shoes- and their retinue. We sat on yet another wooden bench as baby was absolved of the "original sin" and dabbed with 'holy' water, we were moved...
We learned some excellent lessons that are sure to serve us well should we ever receive any other invitations to celebrate such an auspicious occasion in the future;
the most obvious being that punctuality is without a doubt verboten. For me it was an old adage/lesson revisited; "haste makes waste". Having had just about enough of organized religion with all its rituals, I planned a speedy sneaky exit, hoping to steal away unnoticed. I hastily grabbed my coat, shrugged my shoulders into it and made a beeline toward the exit. Just steps from gaining my freedom I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning, I found myself face to face with one of the 'lacey' babies held in his father's arms. The father told me that he had noticed me gathering up my belongings and realized that the green wool coat I had selected from the 'coat' bench was in fact not mine, but his!! Same colour, wrong coat and a definite scene played out in full view of the baptism attendees my plans for a quiet exit were foiled.
Finally outside despite the frigid temperature, now in my own green coat, safe in the conviction that there would be no more baptisms for me..at least not anytime soon, I felt warm inside.