Mistress Pixel’s Word For All Ages

 I am one of those peo­ple who opts for the glory jobs—those jobs that look impres­sive but don’t take too much effort or time. For exam­ple, when I joined the mis­sions com­mit­tee at my church and they asked who would be sec­re­tary I vol­un­teered for the job because it’s super easy and makes me look busy.

Because this is a Congregational church, mean­ing a church run by the con­gre­ga­tion, the mem­bers are often called upon to speak dur­ing the ser­vice. Part of my strat­egy in becom­ing sec­re­tary was to avoid ever hav­ing to speak in church, but, appar­ently there are a lot of peo­ple like me who feel the same way. So when­ever our com­mit­tee chair asks who will get up dur­ing ser­vice and talk to the con­gre­ga­tion about some­thing, I keep my head down and type furi­ously, despite the fact that this ques­tion usu­ally cre­ates a sepul­chral silence, and there really isn’t any­thing for me to type.

One of the jobs I have been avoid­ing for years now is giv­ing the Word For All Ages. The WFAA is deliv­ered to the younger mem­bers of our church dur­ing both ser­vices and is intended to amplify some of the key points of Christianity–easy, no-brainer stuff like Love Thy Neighbor and Obey Your Parents.

As I said, I am secretly lazy and self­ish, which means that if some­one asks me directly to do some­thing, I can’t say no. My heart is scream­ing “Nooooooo, a thou­sand times no!!” but my mouth is say­ing, “I’d be charmed to give the Word For All Ages.”

And that is how it came to be that I found myself in charge of prepar­ing and deliv­er­ing the Word For All Ages.

I have had the entire sum­mer to tie myself up in knots of anx­i­ety and dread over this sim­ple assign­ment that other peo­ple rou­tinely pull off with style. For some rea­son, the notion of acci­den­tally bump­ing the ornate and unsta­ble bap­tismal and knock­ing it to the ground and then audi­bly curs­ing has fea­tured promi­nently in my nightmares.

WORD FOR ALL AGES/October 21, 2012/by Mistress Pixel

Good Morning, how is every­one doing today?

Even though some of you are still a ways away from your junior and high school years, today I want to share with you some of Mistress Pixel’s tips and tricks for being a suc­cess­ful young adult. Everybody ready? Parents, this is for you too!

So the first thing I want to talk to you about is lying ver­sus benev­o­lent eva­sion. We all know lying isn’t nice, right? And a lot of times you are seri­ously tempted to lie when your folks ask you stuff. With benev­o­lent eva­sion, you can still do what you want with­out lying to your mom or dad.

Instead of telling lies, which is wrong, sim­ply don’t reveal any­thing about any­thing unless asked point blank, and then only reveal the most generic details about your activ­i­ties. This gives your folks the feel­ing that they have been respon­si­ble par­ents, and allows you the oppor­tu­nity to avoid upset­ting them. Boys, this is some­thing that comes nat­u­rally for you, but girls, you will have to work extra hard to keep your yaps shut.

The next thing I want to tell you about is peer pres­sure. Now we all know that par­ents think you would only drink alco­hol if you were forced to at gun point. Understand that as par­ents, the idea that you might pur­pose­fully do shots is too painful for them to face up to, and so they have invented this con­cept of peer pres­sure to help them deal with the fact that you want to get fuck– , I mean intox­i­cated. We know you are going to drink, right? Well, my advise to you is stick with beer and avoid hard liquor. This way, you will be too full, and too busy mak­ing trips to the bath­room, to get really ham­mered and make bad decisions.

Verily I say unto you, Do Not Smoke Cigarettes. But pot is OK. In fact, I would say that if you are smart you skip the beer and instead, fill your red cup with seltzer and then have a hit or two of some nice mel­low kush. That way you will be sober enough to care for your  friend who did not fol­low Mistress Pixel’s 5 Steps To Better Partying and did too many shots and  is now vom­it­ing on some kid’s par­ents’ bed.

As long as we are in the sub­ject of beds, I just want you to know—parents, lis­ten up now—that you should always use pro­tec­tion. Mom and Dad, be sure con­doms are eas­ily avail­able for your kids in the house. And kids, be sure to always have a few on hand. Check the expi­ra­tion date before you use them!

Kids, always be polite and respect­ful to your par­ents. Come home promptly at cur­few. Smile and occa­sion­ally thrill your par­ents by spon­ta­neously shar­ing with them some small detail of your life that you know will make them happy. If you got an A on your lab report, let them know! They will bask in the glow of your suc­cess and the fact that you spoke to them with­out being prompted.

Be involved with some­thing you are pas­sion­ate about. Play music, or a sport, or join a club at school. Realize that fun can be had with­out partying.

By all that is holy, do not par­take of any­thing in pill form unless it is Tylenol.

Work hard in school and stay out of Police Beat. If you are a smart and a tal­ented stu­dent then you owe it to your­self and your folks to have excel­lent grades and be col­lege bound. For those of you who strug­gle a bit in school, God loves those who always do their best, and your par­ents will too, so much so that they will be more likely to stay off your case about other stuff.

Good stu­dent or aver­age stu­dent, it is not that hard to avoid encoun­ters with the police if you just use your nog­gin. Boys, do not hot­box and then speed. Do not wear your hats back­wards. Do not carry a bong in your car. Do not fight.  Girls, do not get so drunk that you need med­ical atten­tion. Do not fight.

If there is a chance that you might have had more that 2 drinks in the hour before you are called upon to drive a car, then I say unto you, call your folks and tell them you are sleep­ing over, or, ask them to pick you up. Do this for your friends as well.

Now, let’s say a lit­tle prayer.

Dear God, help me and my par­ents sur­vive my teen years and help me to reach my full poten­tial as I nav­i­gate high school. Let my par­ents dwell in igno­rance as best they can while I exper­i­ment with every­thing that is ter­ri­fy­ing to any­one with a fully devel­oped frontal cor­tex. Amen.

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