Dodge

I need to stop walking down my block during daylight hours on Sunday or else suck it up and go to church more often. Since Sunday services at the nearly next-door Pentecostal church I've often attended last all day, the odds I'll see a fellow congregant I know on the sidewalk are apparently 100& at any given time. Plus, since I'm seemingly the only white person ever known to attend this particular church, my fellow parishioners remember me well.

It always makes me feel guilty.

Today I ran into a deaconess I like a lot while on my way to pick up some fruit.

"You been working hard lately?" she asked, which is a kind way to inquire about my unexplained absence from the church.

"Yeah. Too hard," I responded briefly.

"I'm off all summer. I work for the Board of 'Ed, so I'm free till September." She smiled.

"Lucky lady!" I laughed and shuffled off with a smile and a backward wave, happy to see her but not exactly thrilled to have to dodge her questions in advance about the nature of my work, etc.

Rough stuff. I do it to myself.