We have ways to make you talk
You won’t like it at all
If you can’t run, walk
If you can’t walk, crawl
But don’t look down
It’s a long, long fall
- Warren Zevon, You’re a Whole Different
Person When You’re Scared
God’s Customer Service Department
Subject: Prayer, granting thereof
I am writing because I believe in my
heart* that God is kind and merciful** and that He may have inadvertently
overlooked my personal petitions lately. Regrettably*** my level of satisfaction
with regard to my prayerful requests for His help ranks at 1 on the 1-5
scale****.
* By
which I mean my brain is totally an atheist.
** By
which I mean totally indifferent to the fate of his children who he foolishly
created with more free will than goodwill.
*** By
which I mean I am so filled with regret that everything I do these day is
regrettable.
**** 5 = rapturously satisfied
4
= pleasingly surprised
3
= expectedly underwhelmed
2
= deeply unsatisfied
1
= blindingly enraged
I have been very depressed lately.
Tech Support Guy died rather unexpectedly and quickly at the end of last year.
This year did not begin well, but I expected it to get better. Regrettably, it
has gotten worse because of an impulsive decision to move from my home of 30
years, back to the place where I was born.
I will now briefly recount the issues
presented in my increasingly desperate prayers, and the progressively
unsatisfactory replies.
When TSG died last year, I initially
requested comfort in my grief and resolution of my mixed feelings. Arguably,
the response - in which I spent the next
three months in a numb daze - was at least a response. Furthermore, the
numbness was, upon reflection, preferable to the panic attacks that would
ambush me, sometimes in public. While the numbness helped, I couldn’t help
noticing that it came with a certain passive aggressive pinch of guilt. I was
reminded frequently that part of my grief was coming to terms with what a jerk
my husband was and feeling guilty for not feeling guiltier.
I prayed to God to get over this
stage of grief. In response one day I had this long conversation inside my head
where I imagined myself being married to one of those rugged guys in erectile
dysfunction commercials. He had this trim casual elegance and gruff smile with
a dimple and he read interesting books and volunteered at the no-kill pet
shelter and cooked perfect lamb shank risotto.
Inside my head, me and Erectile
Dysfunction Dude had a long conversation about the tipping point between creative
genius and drug-addled insanity, and at first we agreed to disagree about where Frank Zappa
fit on that scale. His point, while well articulated, boiled down, I thought,
to his assertion that Zappa was so far ahead of his time, like the Jules Verne
of music, that our grandchildren will recognize and celebrate his prescient
genius.
I maintained that Zappa was merely
postmodern before we got there, but now that we’re as over postmodern as we are
over Millennial hipsters and their facial hair, Zappa' ouvre hasn’t aged well, I
insisted. I was all, nobody has to worry
about eating yellow snow thanks to global warming.
EDD sort of won the argument when he
picked up the pepper mill that my dead husband paid $80 for, held it like a mic
and said “Brown shoes don’t make it. Quit
school. Why fake it?” Then he dropped the pepper mill and stood up and cleared
the table and washed the breakfast dishes. I still smile seeing his dimples.
But, while I appreciate the release
and peace this reverie brought, I can’t help thinking it was a bit cruel to
leave me sitting there at the end and focusing on the egg yolk dried to crust
on my empty crumb-scattered plate. EDD does not exist in this universe, and
certainly not in my neighborhood, let alone my breakfast table.
Now, Customer Service, I don’t like
to complain despite the well-established fact that it is one of my more highly
developed God-given skills. If that was where my prayers and your services
ended, I would not have written this letter, and I would have accepted this as
a normal part of life in general and the grieving process in particular.
Regrettably, that moderately
satisfactory result was not to be.
By the end of the summer I had made a
decision to move from SoCal to Puget Sound WA. The decision itself was not
impulsive because I had been discussing this with my sister for years. But the
timing was. We had both expected to move next year. Instead God sent us the
perfect house at the perfect price in August. By September, it was ours. I have
sold my house and will move in a few weeks. This has been stressful, and I have
been plagued with doubts and uncertainty.
What was God thinking? I didn’t ask
for this, and realized too late that I was not ready. The stress has not been managed
very well. In fact, it has pushed me down and tried to hold a pillow over my face. Was
this some dramatic foreshadowing of my worsening depression?
There are some days, when instead of
summoning EDD to cheer me up inside my head, TSG shows up and remind me what a
dick he was to leave me with a hoarding room filled with 40 years of old
computers, electronics, ham radio, speakers and a dozen or so keyboards, decaying
cartons of connectors, adaptors, accessories, and operating manuals for same,
plus old magazines about computers. And porn. Ahh the porn. All covered with
dust and cobwebs so old they were greasy, and interspersed with fossilized rat
feces.
At this point I should stop to
mention that there was, praise God, no fresh feces and that was entirely due to
the inspiration I received from God a few years ago when I saw a rat stroll
down my hallway late one night. The Lord moved me to, at least annually, toss a
box of mothballs into the room and then pop a fogger and close the door. So,
props for that.
Anyway. Cleaning out the hoarding
room was so depressing that I petitioned God to either a) stop making me feel
suicidal; or b) kill me, already.
(Now, I know from personal experience
if you use the S-word around people with 3-digit IQs they tend to ask awkward
questions and generally feel the need to intervene. But seriously, Customer
Service? Surely God knows the difference
between an impulsive cry for help and a rational decision to pull the boxing
gloves off and walk out of the ring. Perhaps that will the be subject of my next
strongly worded letter to your office.)
Anyway. Back to the subject of this
letter: my strong dissatisfaction with the answers to my recent prayers.
I remember the nuns telling us God
always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answer is no. I confess that even
back then, I found this to be an uncomfortable stretch of logic and an affront
to the rules of rhetoric: assuming that prayers were always presented in the
form of yes or no questions. Even back then, I knew life was uncertain and the
biggest single problem was not whether or not to do something; but in deciding
what the fuck to do/not do. In all honestly, I probably wouldn’t have put it
like that back in Sister Francis Mary’s classroom. My nuanced use of profanity
is another one of the skills I have honed with study, age, and the generous help of
God.
I asked God to make the decision and
then execute it. I wanted the cup of my fate to pass. And like he did to his
son at Gethsemane, God turned back to his dice game and his small batch single
malt. Douche move, Customer Service. Like Jesus, this was my darkest hour. I
asked for the cup to pass, like Jesus did, only different. I asked God to pass
me a sip of the scotch, not to spare me from the consequences of my overhasty
decisions. A little help.
Instead, apart from the hardship it
caused me to have to drink alone, I didn’t even get that kiss from Judas first.
Just radio silence. I didn’t get the courtesy of a kiss off, Customer Service.
I cannot conclude otherwise than that I have been treated with greater disrespect
than God forced his only begotten son to undergo on my behalf. (Speaking of
that, all the good that did, eh?)
I am forced to conclude that this
part of your business model may be one of the reasons your franchises have
suffered recently. Miraculously letting Saint Mother Theresa and that other one
wearing Prada gowns and red shoes (no, not Dorothy) get away with mother and
child abuse respectively may have seemed like good ideas at the time. But bread
and circuses and a charismatic pope don’t distract those in need of God’s mercy
and help. We notice God’s ongoing failure to fix this mess our God-given free will has gotten
us into individually and collectively.
I am writing this letter in the
spirit of a consumer who has experienced problems with the product and feels the
terms of the warranty have not been met. I’m hoping you can put this right by
making the Zoloft kick in sooner rather than later. I think that’s the least
you can do*.
* And by least, I mean that’s
probably the most you can do.
I would like to conclude with a
respectful and well-intentioned caution. Perhaps you are not aware that it was
actually man who created God in the first place through the force of our belief
in some benevolent purpose to give our brief lives meaning as we trudge through
this vale of tears. Accordingly, we can uncreate gods by ceasing to believe in
them. The dustbin of history is filled with the decaying corpses of gods men no
longer believe in.
Please consider that in the event
your boss goes out of business, you probably have no unemployment compensation
to fall back on. Customer services are pretty thin on the ground these days,
and it would be regrettable* for me to see you standing on the side of the road
holding cardboard signs invoking god’s blessings as I blow this town and head
to my new life.
* Regrettable
in the sense that I would give as many fucks** about your plight as God does
about my plight.
** Zero
Respectfully,
Dissatisfied Customer
