Being the Good One

The people across the road from me have been letting off fireworks for a couple of days now. I trust the intensity will increase in about 13 minutes, too. It is totally illegal to buy, sell, own, or use fireworks in Victoria - but if it wasn't, I would love to be letting off my own. How come THEY get to do it, and presumably get away with it? How come they feel no qualm, no fear, no guilt? Why do I have to be the good one all the time? I never do a bloody thing wrong. And you know what annoys me even more? Fireworks are illegal because they're unsafe if used stupidly. What that means is that too many people used them stupidly, and now I'm paying the price. I was going to say everybody else is paying the price, but clearly that's not the case, as the people across the road demonstrate! I'm fed up with being the good one while other people have fun. Why can't I go on a murderous rampage? Oh yeah, because I'm the good one. Why can't I steal things I can't afford to pay for? Oh yeah, the good one. Why can't I let off fireworks in my backyard on a total fire ban day? Oohhhh yeah, good one. Bloody morals!

My grandfather died on Thursday, and his funeral was today. Don't chime in with commiserations; I wasn't close to him and I'm not really upset. But this is a musing on the funeral.

It would appear that my grandparents (dad's parents) were quite religious, and grandpa's service today reflected that. There was a lot of stuff about Jesus guiding us through our grief and knowing that grandpa is with Jesus now and looking down on us and stuff. And as I sat there listening to this tripe, I was thinking. I've never been religious, but I know that other people are, and I can accept that, in an abstract kind of way. But to sit there and listen to a person actually say those things brought it home to me in a way I've never before experienced: actual real live people in the world BELIEVE this garbage. This guy presiding over the funeral, whatever he was, really truly believed that my grandfather was now with Jesus, and that He personally would help each person there deal with their grief. The guy believed in God and Jesus and Heaven in a real and tangible way which seemed to me utterly ludicrous - and even more insulting, he seemed to expect me to believe that too!

By the end of the ceremony, I was wondering how many brain cells I had lost by listening.