Chapter 102
The Meat Market

So my sister came with me to church today. Today was also when they announced that they had gotten my records. I’m glad she could have been there for that. It was nice having someone who would actually talk to me. Is it wrong to say that I was grateful that she is just as isolated, if not more isolated than me when it comes to knowing people in that ward? Maybe I don’t really like popular people because they don’t give you all of their attention, they are so distracted. I like people who can give me most of their attention. But I love my sister, for more than just that. It was fast Sunday, which means I didn’t eat, all day. Church is at 1 o’clock and by then my stomach is pleading with me for it all to be over. The past couple of fast Sundays my stomach has been ticking me off, because it is growing ever more impatient. The growls are louder and longer. I really don’t want to talk about it.
But we were sitting there in the quiet of Sacrament meeting and my stomach starts up, my sister gives me a look of surprise and I write her a note saying, “Lay of me I’m starving!” Which gets both of us laughing and then she’s nervous because she is laughing and she starts to shake her leg and all that fabric rubbing together is making me laugh because of the noise and my stomach is still growling. Then her face keeps going red because there is a guy in the ward who she thinks is really cute so if she ever accidentally looks over in his direction she gets nervous, and when she gets nervous her face gets red. When her face gets red, I laugh at her. I’m such a good sister.
Then she leans into me and says, “That guy keeps looking over here and I don’t want him to” (as though I can force who ever it is to stop looking around). I look over in the direction that she is talking about and I see missionaries at first and I hope not one of them is the wandering eye. Then I see who is sitting next to them. It’s this guy that has been over to my house before and I write her a note asking if she is talking about the blond. She says ‘yes’ and I tell her that I feel like he does that every Sunday (and I really do) but I figure he just gets bored and looks all around all the time. It took me a while before I got to thinking that she seems to be the one looking around at everyone, but I let it go, because I know that’s just her personality.
After Sacrament this kid comes up and starts talking to me. We knew each other in high school, for a year, and I didn’t remember us ever really talking but he talked to me as though we had been best friends. So I tried to act the same way, but didn’t really know what to say. But we talked for a couple of minutes and then he said that he was going to go and I said I would see him later. We can be friends.
We were standing by the doors and Jim (my future husband who doesn’t even know me yet) walks by and I lean over to my sister and tell her that my future husband just walked by. He came back in and I pointed him out to her again. But she didn’t get a good look. Then I meant to take my sister to Sunday School but we ended up hanging out in the foyer with my roommates and this guy that my sister and I call him by our brother’s name because he reminds us of our brother. So he came over to tell us to go to Sunday School when it was never his intention to get us to go but rather to sit with us in the foyer. He had told us that he was the Enforcer (which I’ll call him) and I told him he was some enforcer, he told us once and then gave up. He said he did what he could. So I said, “If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em right?” Oh P.S. he’s the one who gave us the mouse. I’ll tell you my new favorite thing though, talking about people while they are right there but trying to make sure that they can’t hear what you are saying and then randomly looking over at them every once in a while. I didn’t do it on purpose but my sister and I were talking about how much The Enforcer looked like our brother but we were being quiet because it’s not nice to talk about people while they are right there (behind the back is completely acceptable). Then we would look over at him and he’d be looking at us and then we would get all embarrassed because we felt like we were caught. Really I think we just gave the Enforcer a complex. But we finally spilled the beans and I had a picture of my brother in my wallet so we showed him and everyone else. The girls who actually knew my brother said that the Enforcer did look like my brother. The Enforcer said that he didn’t and we told him we didn’t mean twins, but there were similarities. I told him that it was what he would look like when he was 32 and one of the girls said that he should keep the picture so he would know what to aspire to. So finally the Enforcer says that my brother is a good looking guy (fully knowing that he was complementing himself).
Sometime in the course of “Sunday school” my sister lets it slip to Jelly Bean that I have my future husband picked out…oh wait, it’s because Jelly Bean asked my sister what she thought about this one guy who was talking to us briefly because they want to set me up with him. Then my sister said I had already picked out my future husband. So then Jelly Bean wanted to know and she wanted to know why I hadn’t said anything. She asks if it was someone they knew and I told her ‘no’ and that I actually found him more appealing because of it. She wanted me to point him out next Sunday but I’ll be in California! Muhaha. Maybe by the week after she’ll forget. I don’t know, it’s just more fun if no one knows about him. People know about him they’ll find stuff out about him, and then slowly I won’t like him anymore. I just want life to be a diminutively interesting for a little while.
So after Sunday school people start walking around the building again and Blondie (the bird watcher from Sacrament meeting) comes up and starts talking to me because he didn’t realize that I hadn’t already been a member of the ward. I introduce him to my sister and I could tell that he was going to keep talking to me but just then someone hit me on the back and it’s my friend and she’s holding the cutest little girl so I talk to her for a bit and when I turn back Blondie has been snatched up by some girl who was talking to him about something boring, because knowing this girl it was probably just about her. People start to clear the foyer and I ask my sister if she is ready to leave (because we are going to eat dinner at my parents). This guy who is always at my house comes up and says, “Oh I see you brought a friend with you.” I felt uncomfortable about how he was looking at her (not really). I introduced them quickly and then pulled her away from the predator. My sister kept talking about how she could tell Blondie wanted to talk to me more but I turned away. I told her I got hit on the back I really couldn’t help it. She said she felt bad for him and she knew she wasn’t good enough to talk to instead. An hour or two before she didn’t even want him looking at her, now she felt bad for him? He’s a guy, he’ll survive, if he really wants to talk to me, he’ll do it again next time. Pretty interesting Sunday I think. My sister should come with me more often.