No one likes to be viewed as a "Project"

I did something pretty out-of-character this week. It was Wednesday night and I didn't feel like being lazy so I went to the good old LDS church to see if dudes were playing basketball. They were! It was pretty fun and it turns out most of them are neighbors of ours so we were all pretty chummy. So they asked me if I wanted to come play at their game on Saturday because a few of them weren't going to be able to make it. I said sure.

I got to the game a little early Saturday and was chatting with one of my teammates. It was amusing because he was asking me questions as if to make conversation, but they were mostly driven towards figuring out if I was Mormon. "So are you married? How long have you been married? So how old are you then? Did you play much church ball growing up? Boxers or briefs or...?" OK, not really the last one, but you get the picture. My answers were fairly ambiguous as I didn't feel like being profiled.

Then he pulled out the big guns. "Did you grow up in the church?" I wanted to say something like, "No, I wasn't aware children lived here" but I decided not to be a smart ass. I gave him a brief summary (wouldn't you like to know?) and hoped that would be the end of my interrogation. Nope. "Well, church is at 1:00 and we'd love to have you. You know where it's at." What was I expecting, right?

I laughed, but again felt an urge to come up with a clever rebuttal. Later when I was telling this story some friends suggested I say, "Really? That's not what the letter I got from LDS Headquarters said." Not bad. Some other options:

"OK, but it will depend on the outcome of my trial."

"Sorry, I administer gay weddings every Sunday at 1."

"Is it BYOB?"

"I would but the pentagram tattooed on my arm gets inflamed around children."

"It's funny cause I was going to invite you to my weekly trip to Wendover."

"Can I bring my wives?"