Pew-eeeeee!

St. Joseph' Church in Seattle Washington

 On Sunday mornings I often think of going to church with my siblings and parents in Seattle, Washington. The experience was always the same: we had to dress up, we couldn't eat breakfast, and we had to sit in the same pew every time. Our pew was kind of  of near the front, so we had to behave. The people who sat in front of us were the same people every week. There was a family of all girls who wore identical pigtails, the on-the-road-salesman guy and his wife, and the lady with the mink stole.
The first time I slid into that pew and saw the stole I freaked. The lady was wearing 5 dead animals, each one chomping his teeth into the tail of the one in front of him.

A mink stole

I had never seen a mink, alive or dead, and I surely had never seen a display like this. I started pulling on my mom's coat sleeve and pointing to the carnage, but as usual, she glared at me and said to be quiet in church. I looked at my brother and his eyes were as glassy and rigid as the fake eyes on the animals.
Suddenly I became overcome with the odor of incense, that lady's perfume, and the heat generated by my wool coat. From my reverent kneeling position I slid back onto the pew seat, and turned my eyes to the identical-hair girls, wondering if they did each others' hair in a kind of Bunny-Hop formation. I soon recovered, and returned to the kneeler.
It happens sometimes in a Catholic church that a person who has received communion will kneel, while a person in the pew in front of them who hasn't received communion because they:  a) committed a mortal sin,  b) forgot and ate breakfast, or  c) is (God forbid) a NON-Catholic, will remain seated. It also helps to control communion pew traffic as a seated person can be more easily stepped over like the common pagan that they probably are. The sit or kneel thing meant that if Mrs. Stinky Stole didn't go to communion, and I did go to communion, I was forced to kneel while  her gnarly dead animals' fur touched my saintly folded hands.
This would be a slightly amusing story except that my weekly nightmare went on for exactly 12 years. But I'm fine, really. No, really.