Saturday, December 29, 2012

Repentance or Regret?


     I regret not posting in so long, I repent my negligence.
     Those terms, they seem like synonyms at first, but I don't think they are. Hmm. Repentance and regret.
     I saw a movie a week or so ago. There was a man who gambled, and lost, a lot. His wife obviously wasn't happy about it. She was complaining about it to this older wiser man, telling him how awful her husband was for gambling. She expected him to agree and sympathize with her. His reply was a short question.
     "Is it the gambling you mind, or the losing?"
     I thought that was a really cool thought. When we sin, and face the consequences of it, what exactly are we upset about? Are we repenting our sin, wishing we didn't do it because it was wrong, or only regretting it because we had to pay for it?
      Would we regret it if we got away with it scotch-free?
      What does scotch-free mean anyways? Is it a term referring to scotch tape being residue free? Or is it Scott-free? Or did I just make up the term just now? What are the answers to these deep philosophical questions? The answer is . . . 42.
      BAHHHH. How many roads must a man walk down?
     Seven. It must be seven. I like seven. Have I told you that seven is my favorite number? I like it a lot. You know why I like sevens? Because I can cross them like a backwards F! I told a friend that one time, and she wasn't really listening and just knew I was talking about sevens, and she said, "I hate people who cross their sevens." I didn't repeat my reasons for loving seven.
      How in Tobago did I get talking about sevens? Who could that be at this hour?

     Oh, by the way, did you enjoy the end of the world? I've been hearing some incredible tales of triumph from the survivors. Did you survive? If you did, there's this comment box thingy below. Feel free to post your survival story, it will be put in our archives and you will be named in our hallowed list of survivors of the horrific apocalypse.


     My experience was more mild than I anticipated. The day started out with a tuna fish knocking on my door. Apparently he'd read this blog and gathered that I'm vegetarian and came to me for shelter.
      "I'm being chased," he said, "I may bring you grave danger, but if you protect me, and we survive, there will be great rewards for you." I ushered him inside from the rain and took his bowler cap and scarf and purple leather trench coat and hung them up. They were so heavy with water that they tore the coat rack off the wall and hit the ground with a great splat. I shrugged and turned back to him.
     "I'll get you a towel to dry off. I'd let you sit on the coach soaked like that, but my mom would kill us both. Or worse, just kill you and cook you for dinner and make me eat you," I explained. He gasped in horror.
     "No! No! Please no!" He yelled, backing towards the door.
     "Don't worry, dear sir, I will not let her cook you," I insisted, trying to comfort him.
     "Anything but the couch! I'm fearfully afraid of couches!" Tears streamed down his face. There was an awkward pause. Then I thought of the perfect thing to say.
      "Oh." Then another pause and another moment of inspiration and enlightenment. "There's the bathtub.. Or the pond."
    "Ah a pond, perfect! Do you have any salt? I'm dreadfully craving some salt."
      I considered whether allowing him to take salt into the pond would kill the other fish or not. I debated inwardly for an hour with he stood there twiddling his fins. However, five minutes before I reached my decision, a blue bus crashed through our house, it crashed through one wall and out the other without slowing down, while the people aboard screamed,
     "The yellow jackets are coming, the yellow jackets are coming!" Soon after they left, a swarm of flying jackets burst through the hole the bus had made. The jackets' sleeves were tied around curved swords which they flung about with deadly abandon. They each had shining gold buttons and were made out of the finest of the finest green polyester.
     My head itched I scratched it and discovered the itch was caused by a miniature sized live chimpanzee. Thankfully I didn't kill it. I went to the kitchen and peeled a banana and set the chimpanzee next to the banana on the counter. Then I made a list of what I needed, packed the knives and packed the bread and prayed for holy things. I was careful what I wished for, and I was sure to crawl through the open door.
     I didn't crawl because I was too tall for the opening, absolutely not. The bus expanded the door to record heights. No, I thought it would sound more epic to tell people that I crawled out of the rubble of my home. Then I started walking.
      I made it half way down our half mile long driveway, when I half remembered I had needed to do something. But since I only half remembered, I half mindedly continued walking, though now at only half speed. I made it half way down the second half of our half mile drive ways, when I remembered the second half of how to remembered what I'd needed to do.
     "The fish!" I exclaimed. I ran back to the house and looked for the fish. I saw some squishy goop under the door that was smacked down on our floor by the bus.
     "Oh Mr. Fish! I'm so sorry," tears streamed down my face. "I promise, I cry because you died, not because I won't get my reward now. I wouldn't have accepted the reward anyways, I would have gotten my reward in heaven for my good deeds. But now you're gone!" I sobbed.
     "Oh good," I heard a voice say. I looked up. There was Mr. Fish, slurping salt up a straw and looking increasingly like a flamingo, "I was lying about the reward and such anyways." He crossed his legs and leaned on the balcony railing. I could tell he thought this position made him look cute. It made me want to throw a pineapple at his feathery scaly flamingotunaman face. "Oh, I accidentally dropped this weird iridescent triangle collection and some eggs and red paint. I mopped it all under the door. I don't think your parents will notice it now."
     "Gahhhhhh youuuuu!!" I raged and bounded up the stairs to attack him when I heard the far off tune of an ice cream truck approaching. I made a run for it, to the ice cream, not the tuna fish.
     Unfortunately the ice cream truck did not surface from its underground path to sell ice cream at our house. But since I was already at the end of the driveway, I decided to walk to my mothers workplace and ask her for the number to call the insurance company to have them come inspect the damage done to our floors from the stupid flamingotunaman's mess. Idiotic fish. If anything could make me want to eat fish, it was him. I was seriously considering stopping by McDonalds to get a fish fillet just to spite him, but decided it was unfair to eat a fish for the sins of the flamingotunaman. So I kept walking.
     Unfortunately I lost track of time and walked too far and ended up in Wisconsin instead and had to back track, which was annoying but I stopped and bought some cheese so it was alright. The journey back was a bit harder because all bodies of water simultaneously turned into volcanos. (Millions of fish died, proving the theory of evolution wrong as they failed to adapt enough to survive in lava instead of water)
     And just as I reached the peak of the tallest volcano and was walking precariously around the edge of the hike that cascaded down into a lava pit, the punk squid squadron of inconveniently inconsistently emphatically employed alliteration burst down from the sky and pointed their noodle guns at me.
      "This is the tuned tuna we are looking for!" They exclaimed exponentially in unison.
Then the spat! onomatopoeia society boomed through the surface of the lava and with a click, each member shot their grappling hooks with clanged against the rock and with grunts and groans, they climbed towards me with hungry growls coming from their stomachs.
     Then the living rocks of personification grew legs and the stones knew it was their time. They took sips of their brave water and clambered towards the volcano where they must go into the angry lava and melt with their happy ancestors. The crowds of living rocks threatened to push me off the sad edge into the furious lava myself.

This is getting long and it's rather late so I'll tell you more about it later. Vale!


1 comment:

  1. That is quite a story. As far as the gambling and sinning goes, I think that if we are true followers of Christ, then when we sin we regret the sin, because we know we have done something Christ would not have us do. We are disappointed in ourselves, because we know Christ would disapprove.

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