Natural Family Planning Interruptus

I’m not a big fan of some of the practices of the Catholic Church, or those of many organized religions for that matter.  I do think that at it’s core, the Catholic Church is good, but that goodness gets lost in some of the menucia  That is all I am going to say on that.

That being noted, it is important to Meggie that our marriage be recognized by the Catholic Church.  For that reason, we are having two weddings — the first is a very private Catholic ceremony.  The second is being performed by my best friend Brandon who has been ordained via Interwebs through the Unitarian church.  Meggie likes to call the former the “Day Wedding” and the latter the “Evening Wedding.”  I like to call them the “Catholic Thing” and the “Real Wedding.”

In order to be Catholic-wed, our exceptionally nice (but nervous, pale and skinny) priest told us that we have to jump through a whole bunch of loops.  One of these hurdles is a NFP course, more popularly known as “Natural Family Planning” or to more insightful minds such as mine, “No Fucking, Please.”  It is a requisite.  We have no say in it.  It has been made local church law for anyone being married in the Arlington-area Archdiocese.  Lame, right?  What really rubs my crucifix the wrong way is that we have to pay for this.  When I asked the ol’ Padre where the money for these courses go, he couldn’t give me an answer.  I have my suspicions.

But, like so many other things (taxes, work, The Hills) I accepted it.  If Jesus could bear torture and crucifixion, I guess I could accept the agony of being told how to bump uglies as the Catholic Church sees proper.  Then again, Jesus didn’t have to make a payment before going through unbearable suffering, so why should I?  Kind of a slap in the face, ain’t it?

Meggie and I sulked over to the first session of NFP today.  I had been preparing for this for a long time.  I had beckoned the spirit of Beavis and Butthead and was ready to secretly chuckle and giggle at any sexual reference.  As Meggie and I entered the building, I reminded her, “We’re totally going to a class where they teach you to do it.  Uh-huh-huh-huh.”

We entered the room, $75.00 check in hand, and were greeted by the instructors.  I don’t remember their names, so I will call them Creepy and Creepette.  Creepy was a 100-lb., 5’6″ weirdo who wore an over-sized golf shirt and very well pressed khakis.  Creepette wore a long, unflattering house-dress that had a pattern reminiscent to curtains that may have been hung in the Bates Motel.  Add to that, she had the frizziest Midwestern 1980s “mom-cut.”  All the keywords I want to use in a Google search will turn up some pretty raunchy things, so I can’t find a picture to help illustrate the she-mane in question.

Meggie walked up to Creepette and told her she had the $75.00 for the class.

Creepette: “Oh.  It’s actually $135.”

Meggie: “But we were told that it was $75.”

Creepette: “Well the price was just changed.  We have a whole new curriculum.”

Meggie: “Can we pay the $75 we have right now and then pay the rest during the next session?” (Yes, there are a total of three of these two-hour ordeals.)

Creepette: “No.  You can have one of the kits, but if someone with money comes in, we’ll have to take it from you.”

This rubbed Meggie and I the wrong way.  We had signed up for this course months earlier.  We had been told the price was $75.00 when we confirmed our reservation for this snore-fest.  They never told us the price changed.  Boo on you, NFP.

Meggie and I sat down.  I noticed a couple with a baby two tables down from us.  I leaned over to Meggie and whispered, “They must have failed the last NFP course.” 

Creepy and Creepette started the class by explaining that they had been married for 20+ years and had eight kids.  Creepette was the antithesis of sexy, but Creepy must have seen something in her to have done the two-backed-beast with her at least eight times. I thought to myself, Maybe he has a gross frizzy-haired woman fetish.

Creepy and Creepette went on to explain that they had witnessed “the fallout” of the Sexual Revolution during the 80s and decided that such a culturally liberating abomination was deplorable.  Then they went on to explain the sinfulness of homosexuality.  Then Creepette explained the nature of the rhythm method and that she wanted the ladies in the room to monitor their cycles, keeping daily track of them so they could share about them when we met next month.  I am not kidding.  Creepette actually wanted the girls to make records of when their vaginae barfed up their uterine lining.  It was precious.  I found it to be disturbingly funny.  Meggie decided it pissed her off, and she left to call her mom.

I sat down for the next 15 minutes and watched a video of a priest explaining diagrams of the male and female reproductive organs.  Again, it was disturbingly funny.  Right when the priest was discussing that contraception is a sin against one’s own body, Meggie came back in and told me we were leaving.

So we left, and Meggie spent the next 20 minutes on the ride to her parents house explaining how upset she was at the content of the classes and how they lied to us about the price.  I was the strong male Meggie has come to rely on and love.  She needed my support, so I told her I fully agree with her (I really do).  I told her that all that was important is that we get married.  I explained that if we chatted with our priest, he could probably do something to make sure we still got married in a Catholic Church.  I explained that in the unlikely event that this does not happen, we are still having the “Real Wedding” and that we can always get our marriage recognized by the Catholic Church later.

Then I explained to her that she missed the video where the priest said “testicles.”