Picking up where we left off.
Smith County, Tennessee, where we stopped for gas and lunch, was the scene of some unplanned evangelizing on our part. That is, I don’t know that we evangelized anyone, exactly, so much as simply engaged in pleasant and informative conversation. Possibly the people we talked to are still talking about us, too.
We were traveling on a Friday. Yes, I know, before anyone says anything, that technically speaking, Catholics don’t have to abstain from meat on Fridays outside Lent. But we do. Yes, I also know that travelers are dispensed from rules of abstinence. All that notwithstanding, at this exit where we stopped for gas there also happened to be a MacDonalds, and they of course serve fish sandwiches. So no excuses. Right? Right.
First stop: gas station. Everyone wanted to get out and rest, as they say. After resting, as we stood waiting for my husband to pay for the gas, the five-year-old started pulling at me and asking what was for lunch, and whether she could have a Happy Meal.
“It’s Friday,” I told her. “Remember? No meat.”
“Wha’d she say?” the cashier asked my husband.
He explained that we were Catholic, and about Friday as the day of the Crucifixion, and blah blah blah, and therefore we would all be having the fish sandwich, which I suppose could hereafter be known as the McAbstinence.
“Rilly?” said the cashier. “I never heard that. My grandmama and them’s all Catholic, and I never heard that in my life.”
Handing my husband his change, she added, “Well, I learned something today.”
And so on to the MacDonalds. My husband went in alone, and here is what transpired, according to him:
Husband to cashier: I’d like six fish sandwiches, please.
Teenaged boy on food line: Six fish?
Cashier to idle employee standing beside her: Ever time it rains we sell a lot of fish.
Husband: Actually, we’re Catholic, see, and blah blah blah, and the Crucifixion, and therefore.
Cashier: Well, I learned something today.
Husband: And four large fries.
The cashier asked him whether he wanted his ten fried food items for there or to go. The entire staff seemed to want to watch him eat the whole thing all by himself.
I wonder: It wasn’t actually raining that day. The sun was blazing away in the sky. But do people really buy more MacDonalds fish sandwiches when it rains?
Boy, is it wet. I feel like a . . . I mean, some . . . fish . . .
Inquiring minds, &c.
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