All the Time

Last night we went to Frankie’s, just like we do every Tuesday night. Our friend Lisa is in from Virginia, and she was nice enough to drive us. Gary and I were in the backseat and Sarah was riding shotgun. On the way there, we were on the topic of TV shows we used to watch when we were kids, and Sarah and I were talking about how we didn’t have cable growing up, but whenever we went to our Grandma’s house we would always watch Eureka’s Castle. I mentioned that when I tried to watch it a few years later and found two clay worms “talking” to each other by emitting a series of unintelligible noises for several minutes, it caused me to wonder “what the hell was going on with this show”.

A moment later, I heard Lisa say, “God is good, all the time,” before continuing the conversation with Sarah as if nothing had happened.

I froze in the backseat. Oh my gosh, had I offended her?

Think, Emily! Have you ever heard Lisa cuss? NO! YOU HAVEN’T! Shhhhhh....OOT! Oh, way to go, cuss some more! That’ll help. I wonder if saying that whenever she hears a cuss word is her way of keeping negativity out and reminding herself that although her friends may be heathens, she is still going to heaven, and she is not taking any dirty cuss words with her. She must think I’m such a bad person.

This cycle of shame and regret continued for a couple more blocks, until I finally worked up the courage to lift my head so I could see whether or not she was giving me the stink eye in the rear view mirror. She wasn’t!

I should have known Lisa would never judge me! She’s my friend! She’s a nice person! Maybe she used to have a problem with cussing too, so now she just says that to keep herself from slipping back into the habit.

I was starting to feel a little less guilty when I saw the bumper sticker on the car in front of us.

GOD IS GOOD, ALL THE TIME.

As it all came together and I realized that Lisa had just been reading the bumper sticker aloud and therefore did NOT have a tic that caused her to break into praise songs every time she found herself within earshot of a curse word, I made a mental note to Google the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia when I got home.