...she wanted her next lover to be a broom.

My Mom found us some new friends who happen to be Mormon.

It’s true. She did. They’re a nice young couple who live next door to her. Anyway, they just moved here from the S.L.C. and she was thinking that the husband and I might, despite his atheism and my apostasy, make suitable companions for them. I told her that I was always down to make more friends, but that they shouldn’t ask any of their Mormon friends about us because I’m pretty sure our house is officially damned by the LDS. She was confused and then I was like, “oh yeah… I probably WOULDN’T have told you about this…”

So when I was 18 some Mormon missionaries came to the door, and I am always up for hearing people talk about the things they love, so I was like “oh yeah, by all means, tell me about your faith”. I think it was the first time these poor kids had ever had a young person be like kind and non-awful to them, so they really took a shine to me. They kept coming back to talk to me all about being Mormon and I kept listening and asking questions because I was raised properly and that’s what you do. ALSO I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being Mormon (or Catholic, or Taoist, or Baha’i…) so why not let them tell me all about it. I’d certainly done the same thing about horses and denim and… pot with people before. So they kept coming back and they started bringing other people with them and one day the main guy, who was so nice, was like “So. We think it’s time to start talking about your baptism.” That’s when I realized that I was in too deep. I had no way out of this. You give a mouse a cookie, right? I told them that I was going to give it a good think, and honestly if my friend Andrew, aka the Skipper (yes, we really called him that) hadn’t come up with the plan he came up with, I would probably be Mormon right now because honestly it wouldn’t have bothered me that much, being Mormon, I mean I wouldn’t have believed most of it, but I probably would have met some really nice people, and I do like the West and dressing modestly… Okay, but anyway, I told the Skipper about my impending baptism and that I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be baptized, but couldn’t see any way out (note: I could have said NO but these ideas don’t present themselves to 18 year olds), and he said, “okay, next time they come over… I have a plan…” So a few days later they came back and Andrew was there and immediately introduced himself as my boyfriend. He said he wasn’t interested in conversion, but that he was open to hearing what they had to say. As we walked into the dining room of what was then my mother’s house, but is right now my house, one of the young men asked Andrew where he lived. “Here” he said. “Madison?” asked the missionary. “No. Here. With Sarah and her mom. Until the baby comes. Then we’ll probably look for a place of our own.” I believe he then proceeded to offer the missionaries cigarettes and swore loudly with his arm around my shoulder as I looked at him adoringly. The missionaries never came back, nor have any other missionaries.

Mom was mad impressed, y’all.