holy crap, what am i going to give up for lent?

i don't ever really look forward to going to church, but i do like having that excuse to come in late to work because it's a "holy day of obligation."

i make no claims to being particularly christian, so i don't do the whole lenten thing to score points with god or anything. and the abstaining from meat thing on ash wednesday & the fridays during lent is something i do more to respect the culture i grew up in, as opposed to the religion that my parents chose for me. likewise, giving something up for lent is more of an excuse to see if i can do without something that i really like, but could do better without.

with that said, tomorrow is ash wednesday and i need to decide what i'm going to sacrifice for the next 40 days. i asked friends for ideas, and i got two suggestions that make me wonder if they wonder about me having issues.

1. i should give up telling potty jokes & other toilet-related stories.

let me preface this explanation by saying that bathrooms are great for having ephiphanies. i plan my day in the shower every morning and often re-work strategies while i'm sitting down on the pot. for a period of time a few years ago, i was sending daily e-mails to friends entitled tales from the toilet, where i'd share random thoughts that entered my head while i sat in the stall, and these messages would usually start day-long discussions about everything & nothing. one of my favorites was inspired by a greeting card i once bought for someone that had drawings representing the various ways toilet paper can be wadded up in preparation for the cleaning up portion of your visit to the pooper. i won't go into detail, but you're probably thinking right now about your own t.p.-wadding technique.

sadly, i needed to stop sending out my tales from the toilet when a guy i was dating forwarded my messages to people at his company and i started getting random pictures of toilets from people i didn't know. freaky bastards.

the e-mail version of tales from the toilet has been replaced, however, by me walking down the hall & sharing my epiphanies with co-workers (and then going back to my desk to write about them in my blog).

2. i should give up loitering outside the men's restroom.

(this is indirectly related to the previous item.)

okay. i didn't think anyone actually noticed that i did this, but the guys i work with have these really loud conversations in the bathroom and they have absolutely no clue that anyone standing outside the door can totally hear every word they're sayin' in there. granted, i'm sure they don't expect that someone's standing outside the door, listening to their every word, but that's the beauty of it. today, co-worker "X" was overheard saying to co-worker "Y" (immediately after the sound of a flushing toilet), "wow. i'm glad that came out well."

the other reason i hang outside of the men's restroom is that the women's restroom is right next door and i've been known on occasion to have a pee race with a male co-worker if one of them happens to be walking in at the same time. the winner gets bragging rights for efficiency, and you forfeit if you neglect to wash your hands. i've tried to get some of my female co-workers to play this game, but they think they can't win. take it from me: women can pee just as fast as men...just depends on how badly you have to go.

(maybe i'll start playing "race the flush" again. it's been a while, and it can be a single-player game.)

so anyway, back to what i'm actually going to give up:

i've decided my 40-day sacrifice will be candy & other sugary crap along the same vein, and i might throw french fries into the lenten sacrificial fire, although i don't actually eat them enough to consider it much of a sacrifice. the idea isn't very original for me, having given up junk food about every 3 years or so since grade school, but it'll be hard to resist temptation nonetheless.

anyway, i better get some sleep. i've got to get up early tomorrow morning to get smudged by a priest and then run errands on my way to work with the smudge as proof that i actually went to church, thus justifying my tardiness. i'm milking this holy day for all it's worth.

amen.