For those who have spent some time in church services only. Non-church-goers needn’t apply.
Until I was in my teens, church was required. If I could have gotten out of it I would have, and after I left home for college I quit until I met my to-be-wife. I went with her and her family for a year or so and then quit again. It was many years later, with my second wife, that I returned to a non-denominational church for a year or so. And I haven’t been to another one in several years.
So this all has to do with the period where I was forced to attend.
To while away the time, there were these activities:
holding one’s breath by the clock
tic-tac-toe
pig-in-the-pen
paper-rock-scissors
naps
counting to some large number
counting the other people sleeping
There may be others I have forgotten, so I’m asking for help here.
If you actually pay/paid attention to the service, this thread is not for you. Please?
I believe my folks just wanted me (and my brother) to be seen in church. As long as we didn’t make too much noise or commotion, we were free to seek our own spiritual fulfillment in any creative ways we could.
Oddly enough, that thing with The Bible never even crossed my mind! I even had to memorize the books of the Bible (I can still say them all in one breath – that’s how deep that memory went) and selected passages of scripture, for what reason I never really knew. But the only parts of the Bible I have ever read for sincere interest are the parts that have the stories they’ve turned into movies. Like Samson & Delilah, David & Bathsheba, the life of Jesus, etc.
Sadly, I didn’t learn about Hangman until well after those years. That would definitely have been put to good use.
I read everything I could get my hands on. The hymnal thing, the annoucement newsletter thing, whatever.
I’d play “Find the goofy looking people.”
I’d mess with my watch (Timex Ironman with 27 functions or something).
I’d plot elaborate “Great Escape”-esque escape attempts (i.e. “If I tunnel under the pew, through the foundation, then tunnel right out the door, I can be out of here.”)
I’d make fun of the priest in my head.
Man, to think of all the Sundays I wasted stuck in church.
I just remembered another one. During the evening services, when the attendance was greatly reduced from the morning ones, we could get a whole pew to ourselves. Then we could play paper football with folded up bulletins or envelopes and “kick” the ball by thumping it to the “field goal” (somebody’s fingers held out to resemble a goal post). The trajectory had to be low enough not to be visible above the top of the pew.
And there was a wide range of origami with bulletins and envelopes: paper airplanes, water bombs, chains, cootie catchers, etc.
For a second I was wondering what a cootchie catcher was, and why you’d even dare make on in church.
I’d draw on my church bulliten, stare at my watch and count with it, look through the Bible for funny things, and when I started going with friends, we’d sit by ourselves and pass notes back and forth.
My brother and I would draw letters on each others legs to spell out sentences. Usually the sentences had something to do with the torture of church or my apparent resemblance to a pig. We also had a game where we’d take turns pinching each other on the arm. It started off with a light pinch, but with each turn the pinch got harder. Whoever made a noise (or wince, actually) first lost the game. I eventually mastered the handy skill of looking like I was about to throw up. I would concentrate really hard on feeling sick until I actually did feel sick. It would pass as soon as I exited the heavy wooden doors, then I’d sit in the car and listen to Duran Duran while the rest of my family got exact directions to heaven or something. My brother accused me of being a witch and casting spells on myself. He was just jealous because he couldn’t get the blood to ruch out of his face like I could. Sucker.
I used to fill in all the O’s in the program and then connect them with lines to make a pattern. I also wrote running commentaries on the sermon in a code of my own devising, so that anyone looking at my notebook page couldn’t tell I had written “BULLSHIT!”
I played a mental game called “What would their kid look like?”
Once I was in the choir, facing the congregation, it became more fun.
You pick 2 people with odd or unusual facial features, then concentrate on one of them for a while. Get to where you could conjure up certain features…then superimpose them onto the other in your head.
The drawback was the giggling. The long-term problem was meeting their children at church reunions and seing some of those faces. I never played the game with a married couple, as I wanted a challenge. Some things were REALLY scary.
I also played “What is the dominant color in the congregational wardrobe”, and kept chronological notes in my choir folder on when the winter reds gave way to the desperation-for-spring bright pastels. (2nd Sunday in January)
I guess I was boring. I just went through the hymnal from front to back, enjoying the music in my head. Fortunately, I was dragged to a very PC church where the kids only had to sit through the first 20 minutes or so of the service and then we’d go off to Sunday School, so that was always ample entertainment.
Sneak out (only did this twice before I got caught)
Put in-ear headphones on, Wear my hair down and listen to music without anyone else knowing I was
Watch the portable TV
Imagine what the preacher would look like with hair
Yawn and nod off to see how angry the preacher would get
Play Tic-Tac-Toe
Flick little paper balls in people’s hair
Steal from the collection plate (did this once, ten cents, I got guilty because I heard God could see everything you did and stuck it back in the plate)
Fold the prayer cards into different shapes and throw them
Every Sunday, I collected the communion wafers and ate them later, and also collected enough wine to get sloshed
Play Gameboy
Wear those sunglasses with eyes in them and go to sleep
Sneeze into my hands before everyone started shaking hands and saying “Peace be with you” to see how disgusted some people would look
Go to the bathroom and throw wet toilet paper balls onto the ceiling
Hide out in the coat closet
Watch people to see what they were thinking
and 21. Stare at people for a very very long time until they got uncomfortable (I have honed this skill very well to this day)
I was a weird kid.
When I went to church I used to listen… and then I went to synagogue, all Hebrew and I used to follow along…
But then I got burnt out and started wandering around aimlessly, going to the bathroom a bazillion times, trying to figure out where my husband was (separate seating, see…) and writing Pokemon fanfiction in my head (where it should have stayed, but nevermind…). I don’t go any more.
Usually, I would just calculate the number of seconds until the service is over. As I got older and calculating seconds got too easy, I’d calculate fractions of months or years remaining (once I got years, decades and millennia were easy).
Sometimes I would count all the scientific inaccuracies of the last episode of Star Trek. When I learned about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, I was able to start over from episode 1.
Several times I tried counting the number of words in the service, including hymns. I always lost count.
Like Zeldar, I would see how long I could hold my breath. My mom would get mad when she saw me red-faced and squirming with my eyes bulging out as I approached the two minute mark.
No I didn’t see that, but I did learn in church that if you hyperventilate before holding your breath it is possible to hold your breath for an extraordinary amount of time. The trick is to hyperventilate quietly.
I was given a book for Christmas called “101 Ways to Survive A Dull Sermon”, It’s great. Some of the things it suggests are:
Face aerobics
Updating the maps in the backs of the Bibles by adding little gun turrets and aircraft carriers
A sort of sermon Bingo where you and some friends decide on a number of words before the service starts (for example ‘immoral’, ‘debauchery’, ‘yob culture’) then you listen very hard to the sermon and tick off the words when you hear the preacher use them. The first person with a full set jumps up and shouts ‘RAPTURE’
Getting from the back of the church to the front by crawling under the pews.
Slap the person sitting next to you. See if they turn the other cheek. If they don’t, put up your hand and tell the minister.
Holding up cue cards for the audience during the sermon (OOOoo, Ahhhh, Applause etc)
Speaking in tounges.
Attempting to indicate to the preacher, through creative mime, that his fly is undone.
