Got Legalism?

I got kicked out of a function this weekend.

Let's pause for a moment. Okay, now read that sentence again.

I don't think I've ever been kicked out of anything in my entire life, but it happened this weekend in grand fashion. Let's flashback to Friday night.

This year, I've been fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a couple of nice girls who go to Drake. Both of these girls were homeschooled, yet surprisingly social and well-adjusted. (They break a lot of the normal stereotypes.) And apparently in Des Moines, there is this consortium of homeschoolers called The Network, which plans social events and brings in teachers to teach chemistry so the parents won't have to blow up stuff in their own kitchens. You know, cool stuff like that. I've been obsessed about this organization for a while, mostly because of the cool name. The Network. So cool.

At any rate, last Friday The Network held its annual formal. This is an excuse for high school-aged Networkers to get all dressed up and have a prom-like event of their very own. (Albeit under very strict rules. I heard the girls' dress straps had to be at least three finger widths wide. Those are some wicked wide straps.) So they go have a nice, formal dinner. But there's no dancing. Because dancing is "like having sex standing up," according to one local pastor. (Actually, the way our generation dances, he's not that far off.) But they do have an afterparty, which we crashed.

My friend Keri (the former Networker) convinced Raph and I to go visit her sister at the afterparty, so we drive out to a local church to see what we can see. What we can see is the church's gym, stocked with food and soda and fun afterparty-type events. (Apparently, Dance Dance Revolution is not a sin, whereas for-real dancing is. A strange distinction that I suppose comes from a lack of pelvis-on-pelvis contact.)

We see her sister and are talking to her for about 30 seconds before we attract the attention of a chaperone who comes right over and asks, "Are you in The Network?" like it's a Freemasons meeting or something. Right away, Raph says no, I say yes, and Keri says, "We're her ride." So right off the bat, we've screwed up. (We're the worst party-crashers ever.) So this lady won't leave us alone, telling us we can either take her with us now or come back later, but making it pretty darn clear that we're not welcome.

It should be noted that I knew this lady. I didn't know her personally, but I knew the type. If you've ever known a mom that goes around calling neighborhood kids heathens, you know the type too. (Josh, you know who I'm talking about specifically.)

At this point we've pretty much attracted the attention of every chaperone in the place, due to our extreme tallness and our obvious age. (In retrospect, my plan of claiming to be in The Network was seriously flawed.) So we make our retreat to the hallway outside the gym and continue talking to Keri's sister, but they follow us out there. So we finally admit defeat and head to the car, only to be followed THE ENTIRE WAY OUTSIDE by a dad who tucked his tie into his shirt. We laughed all the way home.

Now, I can understand that this was a closed event and they didn't want us crashing their party. That's fine. But you should have seen this lady's face when we walked in. She was nervous beyond belief, like we were going to pull knives or secular rock music from our pockets. Or maybe deal drugs and impregnate their daughters just by looking at them. And trust me, the three of us were about the least threatening characters that could have tried to crash the party. I can't imagine what her reaction would have been if I had anything pierced. Probably would have passed out in shock. It's this kind of Christian-bubble, shut-out-the-world-and-shelter-your-kids, praise-the-Lord-and-pass-the-ammunition attitude that gives homeschooling a bad name. Which is really too bad, because, if done for the right reasons and done correctly, is not that bad of a thing.

Anyway, that's my story for the weekend. Hope you slogged through it. Read it through Gizzogle - it's probably funnier that way. Everything is. Sorry, I just can't stop doing that.