DON’T BREAK THE HABIT

     Many years ago in the early halcyon days of my marriage, my then-husband and I were friendly with a Manhattan-based couple.  Time was often spent with them celebrating good wine, food, laughter and the incessant pleasures of the city.  Cris and Janet had just been married and were happyto join us in the care-free, spur of the moment decisions ‘to do somethingfun’---often typical of newlyweds.

     Cris’ father was a tailor, one who was enmeshed in the old-fashioned, old world value of pride in one’s skill.  For him, tailoring was serious business.  He was skilled in many types of fashion but the one he treasured the most was the tailoring he did for a group of Catholic nuns.  You can imagine his horror when his son asked to borrow some of those habits.

      As the day approached, the four of us had agreed to not break the habit of celebrating Halloween, pardon the pun.  We would don the vestments for the festivities.  Definitely having two six feet tall males in such attire would surely help us win a prize or, at the very least, put us in our own spiritual category.

      Halloween morning arrived.  Unfortunately, some  evil witch had put a hexon me and I woke up with nausea of epic proportions.  God was punishing us!  No forays into Manhattan dressed as nuns!  Yet, some kindly saint must have taken pity on me for as the day wore on the nausea subsided.   We would not be dissuaded from our celebration.  Did the fact that we would don our attire and celebrate the next day matter?? NO!  So a new game plan was formulated with a little twist.  “How about hitting some of the bars and discoson Second Avenue and then going to St. Vincent Ferrer’s church on Lex. where we were married, ringing the bell and asking for the monsignor. C’mon, he’s gotta think this is a hoot!, said Cris.

                       Twenty-four hours later, in ready position and fully garbed, we began our pilgrimage.                        What followed were unending waves of laughter, side glances, snickers and one particularly boisterous truck driver shouting out to me, “Hey,sister, you ain’t never  gonna’ get to heaven that way!!”  Bar after bar, disco after disco, we continued out aberrant, hysterical fantasy, laughing until our sides hurt.  This was to be topped off by our final stop, St. Vincent Ferrer’s
rectory.  Standing with my partners-in-crime, I rang the bell near the old wooden door on top of a never-ending staircase.  No one answered.   I rang again.  Slowly, the door opened and a young priest quizzically looked our way then burst out into peals of laughter.  “We’re here to see the monsignor.”
“Oh my God!!   I don’t know if he can handle this” as he ran off to fetch him.

     Out of the shadows slowly emerged a grey haired figure, slightly slouchedover so that his eyes did not meet ours immediately.  He stared.   A little smile started to make his thin lips curl, then it  became wider,  broader  until it finally erupted into a full out, belly shakin’ body laugh.  I thought the man was going to choke.

     Yes, it was funny that there were four people dressed as nuns who weren’t nuns, two of whom were men but would that evoke such a paroxysm of laughter?  I guess it was the one thing I failed to mention.  I was eight and a half months pregnant with my daughter and holding a sign that read, in big
letters,  “NUNS FOR OPTIONAL CELIBACY”.

     I guess the truck driver was right.