It's News To Me

So the other night my sister and I were watching the evening news. In Milwaukee the news is really shitty. Not the actual happenings, but the news show. I mean it is absolute shit, both in content and delivery. It often looks like a parody of real news. Minnesota was better.

Anyway, my favorite story of all time occurred the other night. It requires a little exposure to both the midwest and uncommon religions, but it's probably funny anyway. The story is as follows:

It started out showing police vehicles dramatically parked askew in front of a church. The reporter is standing in front of the scene. Lights may or may not have been flashing. The reporter begins to talk about the event of the day, which is that a woman openly carried a gun into a church. Not to shoot things up, just to carry. People can be into that here, you know, their right to have a gun anytime just in case some shit goes down in the produce aisle. I'm of the opinion that shit often gets shittier when there are more guns involved, but it seems that the gun havers feel safer with a little steel courage by their sides.

I digress.

So then it cuts to a reporter talking to the gun toting woman inside a sanctuary-looking area. Her name is plastered across the bottom of the screen, but her face is not shown. It feels sinister and hilarious. The woman, who is heavyset and wearing a holiday turtleneck, shows us how she carried her gun. She is wearing a belt with a holster. She snaps the gun in with a diabolical snapping noise. She says that she has the right to carry, and they should not have arrested her. She will sue. The gun snapping into holster is replayed, holiday turtleneck background resplendent.

Cut to a new scene. It is the reverend of the church. We become aware that this is a Unitarian church. My sister and I fall apart laughing. The reverend speaks. She is quite butch, which is totally par for the course in a Unitarian situation. There is usually a high quotient of vegans, political activists, ex-peace corps members, gays and lesbians, liberals, and appreciaters of poetry (as an aside, growing up Unitarian exposed me to possibly some of the best potluck performances of all time, no small feat in central MN). The reverend mentions with great understatement that the peaceful nature of the Sunday service was threatened by the weapon, and in alarm, the Unitarians called the police to deal with the firearm, as Unitarians are not battle trained. The peace corps is not as focused on hand-to-hand combat and disarming intruders as other branches of government service. The reverend looks like she is a little distressed, less by the actual high-intensity incident than by the poor judgment of the woman carrying a gun into the midst of a bunch of Unitarians. She points out that they now have a sign forbidding the entry of weapons into the church. She looks pained that she has to keep talking about firearms.

At this point my sister and I are seriously losing our shit. It was just such an extreme case of the Midwest, Unitarians, and not knowing your audience that all came together in a confluence of awesomeness. It's possible that you have to be from the upper midwest, Unitarian, or maybe just really willing to laugh at people to appreciate the whole thing, but any way we sliced it it was some funny shit.

NO GUNS IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH