Good Friday Reflections

This morning my father phones me to say that the Catholics are carrying a large wooden cross through the village. Although a practising Catholic himself he appears to think this is the height of absurdity. He says they should be passing my house in a few minutes and wants me look out my window and have a good laugh.
I spend ten minutes peering round my nets (really must wash me nets this Bank Holiday) but all I see are dozens of people hastening towards the supermarket to give thanks for Double Chocolate Gateau at half price and Buy One Get One Free on peperoni pizzas.
The only vaguely Biblical scene is a stoning taking place outside the Co-op. But it's only a bunch of chavs throwing pebbles at the newspaper recycling container.
The Catholics must have taken a different route. Typical. Devious fucking Papists.

Years ago when I was living elsewhere I parked my car on the pavement one Good Friday morning and ran a cable out from the house so I could Hoover the inside of the car. As I was Hoovering the back seats I looked out the rear window and saw the parish priest in full vestments approaching, leading a rather scruffy-looking donkey. He was followed by a line of choirboys in full voice.
He stopped and glared at me through the car window. I put my head down and carried on Hoovering. Because of the noisy obstacle I presented, the Vicar was forced into the road, exposing his ass to the perils of the oncoming traffic, whilst the line of choirboys had to bifurcate with half passing on the offside of the car and the other half on the nearside where they tripped over the Hoover.
Sneaking a glance through the side windows of the car I saw that most of the choirboys had succumbed to an attack of the giggles. Some had pressed their hymn books over their faces and others were grinning delightedly at me through the car window. Strangulated Hosannas and shrieks of laughter rang out in the suburban street as the Vicar, oblivious to the chaos behind him, disappeared into the distance, still singing lustily and unaware that his backing group were falling around clutching their stomachs like a crowd of drunks at pub chucking-out time.

Suffer not the little bastards to fall over my Hoover, I thought. And then those grinning pre-pubescent faces transformed into the image of the Laughing Buddha and I thought that if we couldn't have a religion of laughter, then a world with less religion and more laughter would be no bad thing.