The Mormon Boys

An updated folk song*

Chorus:
Come girls, come, and listen to my noise,
Don't you marry the Mormon boys.
For if you do, your fortune it will be
Jello molds and babies are all you'll see.

When they come a-courting, this is what they'll wear:
A white shirt and tie and side-parted hair.
And when they come a courtin', I'll tell you what they'll say:
"Come on, Sister, we can't go out until we pray."

They will lead you out of the singles ward,
And marry you in the eyes of the Lord.
And before that wedding you can only embrace,
For that's the way of the Mormon race.

Your reception'll be in the cultural hall,
And temple pictures will hang on your wall.
You'll put Enrichment-made crafts on your door,
And worry all day 'bout the cleanness of your floor.

Root beer is root beer any way you mix it,
A Mormon's a Mormon any way you fix it.
When other good folks have all gone to bed,
The Mormon's awake reading scriptures instead!





*This parody is loosely based on the versions found here, here, here, and here.

Fascinating Bloggerhood

Thanks to the magic of Big Brother-like spy technology--or, okay, maybe just the magic of the internet--I can tell how people get to my blog. Most of you come redirected from the sites of my friends, and a few of you, most likely my lovely mother or her sisters, the auntourage, either type in the web address directly or simply Google key words like purple petra indonesia islands sea some untidy spot my daughter please someone help me find her blog until the site you want appears.

(You may think I'm exaggerating, but you haven't seen the site records.)

In the spirit of the same good fun that causes me to tease my own female relatives--who, by the way, should know that I love them and that they're encouraged to read, anytime, no matter how they get here--let's take a look at some of the other Google searches that have gotten people here.

First, there are the pronunciation requests:

pronunciation oregano
pronounce hover
mispronunciation

People: if you had read the post, you would know that I am not the one to ask. Go find someone who doesn't have intuitions like mine.

Then, there are the creeps:

mom sex
lyndonville teacher nude photos
naked middle schoolers picture
indonesian porn

I have got to stop making suggestive jokes on the internet. I know these people are going to be disappointed when they get to my site, and, frankly, I'm glad. Anyone looking for those things deserves to be disappointed.

(With the possible exception of the first item of the list, but then only if you are a mom looking for sex, hopefully with your lawfully wedded husband; all others, get thee to a nunnery, or possibly just ancient Greece--the point is, anywhere but here.)

The third group are the people I really worry for:

stalking with a baseball bat
he was persistent so I gave him my phone numebr
what if stalker ignores the police
my stalker knows everything about me
songs to make your stalker leave you alone

I looked up the source locations of these Google hits, and they're not all from the same person, which means I have to give five different people the advice people gave me: ask for help, not just from Google, and from the police if necessary. Especially you asking about the baseball bat. Unless, of course, you were asking for instructions, in which case, don't mind me, I'll just be off in the next room dialing 911.

Those are the main groups. Then there are the random hits:

thomas barrett forever and ever again
I'm still proud to recommend my cousin, by the way.

did the egyptians really set booby traps?
In my case, yes, but I'd rather not be reminded of the number of times I got felt up by strangers in Egypt.

jakarta's prettiest blogger
Um, I'm flattered and all, but that search leading to my site is bad news for Jakarta's bloggers, as I fit only one of those categories.

flight to singapore overweight
I don't think my constant access to peanut butter M&Ms has affected me that much yet.

picture of an untidy person
Boy, Google is all about defamation of character, it seems. Though, unfortunately, I have to concede that this one is absolutely true. Even though I just tidied my room--or, rather, "spot"--on Saturday, the piles of books and papers have surreptitiously multiplied in my sleep. I can't think of any other explanation for the random pile of syntax books by my bed. Mea maxima culpa.

site: purplepetra.blogspot.com gay
This one shocked me when I first saw it: What?! I thought. I may have short hair, but, really people, how many times must we have this...and then I remembered that that hit was me, checking to see if I had told a certain joke before. Oops. Nevermind.

And, finally:
happy birthday petra
I don't care if my birthday was three and a half months ago: thanks!

Laid For Your Faith

My ward recently, as all good singles wards must, held a chastity lesson. This was no ordinary chastity lesson, either--it was a special two-hour, everybody-all-together, question-and-answer chastity extravaganza.

(I told my dad this and he laughed out loud. "I hope they make a big deal out of it," he said, "as that's the closest you're going to get." I'd like to think that was a plural you.)

The lesson, in contrast to many of my more awkward chastity lectures at BYU (I remember, as a freshman, leaning over to my friends sitting next to me and wondering what on earth "Levi loving" was, and why my bishop was so against it), was intelligent, articulate, and refreshingly specific, though, frankly, I could have used a little less repetition of the word "probe" in close proximity to the word "genitals." But, you know, maybe that's just me.

As we were setting up the chairs for the lesson, the first counselor in the bishopric told us to pass out hymnbooks for our opening hymn. "Will we sing a special chastity song?" my friend joked.

The counselor considered for a moment: "If you can write a chastity hymn before the meeting starts, we'll sing it."

My mind instantly started racing with possibilities, but, unfortunately, the chairs were set up and the meeting began before I could figure out how to force lines like "As I have loved you, love one another, but try to avoid probing one another's genitals," and "God is love, but we mean agape and not eros, so, please, keep your hands off each other" into the tunes they were meant for.

Had I been given another ten minutes, though, we could have begun our chastity lesson appropriately:

Onward single Mormons,
Chaste and true and pure.
Bear the cross of virtue;
Abstinence endure.
Sex oral and otherwise,
Petting heavy and light
All these things we do without
In our celibate plight.

Chorus:
Onward single Mormons,
Chaste and true and pure.
Bear the cross of virtue;
Abstinence endure.

It's probably just as well, though, as I already had my hands full during the meeting trying to explain the proceedings to the Indonesian investigator I've been translating/explicating for; justifying an entire church meeting dedicated to the details of celibacy was so hard--"Um, you know we don't usually talk about "passionate kissing" in church, right?"--that I can't imagine what I would have done with an entire hymn dedicated to those same details.

Oh, and our real opening hymn? "How Firm a Foundation." I'm a terrible person, I know, but I snickered.

Not Living, Just Killing Time

Got too much time on your hands?

So do these people. But it makes for good listening.

You could visit my favorite corner of the Bloggernacle.

I haven't ever fully understood an article by Chomsky either. But this is a good way to waste 30 seconds.

One of my favorite writers has a blog. I'm trying hard not to hyperventilate.

Read a book by email. I'm still not sure how I feel about this one.

Find out why I've been crying constantly since early last week.

No, no, wait, I'm not crying. It's just been raining on my face.

Or, of course, we could all get back to work.

Poor Performance or Plain Incompetence?

These are some actual sentences I produced yesterday.

First, the first thing out of my mouth when my friend picked up the phone:

I should take which direction to the airport?

That shouldn't be a wh-in situ question if I'm not echoing something previously said, and how can I be echoing something previously said if the conversation is just starting? I broke pragmatics with this one.

Second, referring to my worry about going up a hill in the wrong direction:

I'm just scared I'll drive it up the wrong way.

Um, that's a verb plus a prepositional phrase, not a verb-particle. I broke syntax with this one.

Third, and this one is so shockingly against all the rules of English grammar that it needs no context:

What should I drive past a?

A hideous, and egregiously wrong, blend of "What should I drive past?" and "I should drive past a what?" I think I just broke the English language with this one.