POOR AS A CHURCH MOUSE

A friend who is traveling has been stuck in the airport for the last four hours because her plane is late. She emailed me to pass the time and told me about a mouse that has been playing peek-a-boo with her and the fat welders who are making repairs nearby. She ended her email be saying that perhaps what she needs is a priest.

At that point the muse struck and I told her about the problem we are having with our church mice which I share with you below. Hopefully, it excited her levity and mirth and I hope it excites yours as well.

I told her that regarding her airport mouse, I only have influence with church mice but right now our church mice are quite angry. We are in negotiations with their union and their demand is completely unreasonable. Their anger is not about money or working conditions. Rather, they claim they do not get the respect they deserve. What respect you ask? They find the phrase "poor as a church mouse" demeaning and want to be known as "financially challenged" church mice.

Contrarily, our board believes that to do that would break with over 1,000 years of tradition and would be most upsetting to the ladies with blue hair. You see for the ladies, it is a matter of pride because their Social Security check is so small they need to know that at least the mice are poorer than are they.

So, the church mice went out on strike.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the ladies and now they refuse to leave crumbs from the bread used at Holy Communion for the mice. The mice are outraged and responded by reminding the ladies what happened at St. Nichlas Church in Obendorph, Austria on Christmas Eve in 1816.

The mice at that church were so angry they chewed through the bellows of the organ and when the boy behind the organ started pumping away, this was when organs were powered by air pressure, nothing happened. The only way a disaster was avoided was that Franz Gruber, the organist, grabbed his guitar and started playing a song that popped into his head. Gruber called it Stille Nacht but we know it as Silent Night.

So, negotiations are at an impasse. The mice are threatening echo terrorism against the church and the ladies still refuse to leave crumbs for them. As for me, there were no courses in seminary on how to minister to angry mice.

That said, my advice to my friend was to be nice to her airport mouse. She should also thank her lucky stars the fat welders have a good relationship with the mice’s union or else repairs would not be in progress.