all God's children have but one life the days of which to live, though, like sands through the hourglass, they search for another world tomorrow as that same world turns past general hospital to Santa Barbara

The title, which makes no sense, implies that my life has turned into the Mother of All Soap Operas. My friend who is a boy is a member of the Church of Jesus christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Most worthy males in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints serve missions when they reach the age of nineteen. This is expected but cannot be required. Failure to complete a mission and return with honor puts a definite black mark both on one's church record and on one's social sratum withim the church. since it's all out in the open now, I can say that my friend has not decided for certan that he will go on a mission for the church.  I'm not sure how it became common knowldge. Jared spoke of it to me, but I told no one. My PseudoAunt brought it up to me. She said my friend who is a boy had spoken about it with her and her husband. I'm not sure exactly who else he shared this information with, but at least one of his confidantes did non keep this information in confidence. Typically, a boy's consideration concerning whether or not to serve a mission would not  be a major source of interest, particuarly among people who are near the age of my friend who is a boy. It's more the parents who are intrigued, since every boy in the history of the family of my freind who is a boy in the past one hundred years has successfully completed a mission. So some kid casually says to another one, "Are you going on a mission?" The other one replies, "I don't know. Jared's not going." A parent overhears it, and POOF! a rumor has begun.

Many of my estranged relatives live in close proximity to my friend who is a boy. Eventually the rumors concerning my friend who is a boy and his decision as to whether or not to go on a mission reached the rather nose-like ears of my relatives who  are evidence on both sides of the coin that one  cannot choose those to whom he or she is related.  The red-hot information concerning a seventeen-year-old boy and what he will do with his life when he turns nineteen eventually grew too large to be contained in one county, and expanded northward into the county in which my grandparents reside. My grandparents, apparently the braintrust from whom my brother inherited his mathematical ability (he didn't master his multiplication tables until the final day of third grade) added A to B to reach the sum of C, then concluded C= the intersection of the set of non-negative integers  with the set of transcendental numbers divided by the multiplicative inverse of pi . This allowed my grandparents to reach the logical conclusion that my friedn who is a boy was motivated, persuaded, or  forced not to go on a mission by . . . me.

     My grandparents wrote a letter, the specific contents of which are too embarrassing to share, but basically stating [in so many words at one point] that my iniquity in denying this young man the blessing of serving a mission for The Lord's Church will cause me to burn in Hell. This message was delivered to me by specail courier just as I was coming down from an amazing snowboarding run. Any pleasure I might have gained from that near-perfect downhill run is gone forever. It was replaced by a letter from my very own bilogical grandparents, prophesying that I will Burn in Hell.

     I was not the only recipient of a special-delivery letter from my grandparents.  The parents of the boy who is my friend also were blessed with a personal, hend-delivered-by-courier message. The crux of the message to them was that the Incubus was residing in their vacation home with them, undermining everything they've ever tried to accomplish as parents, and, of all things, dissuading their elder son from serving a mission. (For all my grandparents know, I way very well be dissuading their younger son from serving a mission as well. at the age of two, he's much more impressionable. All I would have to do is change the words of a few songs and teach them to him. For that matter, why stop with the boys? I'm probably teaching every kid in the family my own evil ways.)

   The parents of the boy who is my friend are not totally naive. They heard the same rumors about their some that everyone else heard. They also heard from very reliable sources that his wavering on the topic had absolutely nothing to do with me. When they got around to opening their courier-delivered letter suggesting essentially that they cast me out and burn everything that I touched, they weren't angry with me but with the authors of the letter.  Telephone calls resulted in loudly exchanged dialogue on both sides. At one point, my grandfather complained of chest pains. 9-1-1 was called, and my grandfather was transported to the hospital. For the record, nothing of significance was found in my grandfather's EKG or whatever other testing was done. he's resting at home, surrounded by his loved ones, all of who blame me for his near-death experience.

    I'm still feeling slightly barfy. but the people in charge of me insisted that I snowboard again today. I'm going out on a double date in a few minutes with the boy who is my friend and my PseudoAunt and Uncle.
This was planned before the letters came. I didn't want to go, but I am being forced.  I have to show my detractors that I won't curl up into  fetal position annd stay that wayy for a week. The problem is that what i really want to do is curl up into the fetl position for an entire month.