GO TO CHURCH. YOU'LL BE GLAD YOU DID.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

A man and his wife had just moved into their retirement home. The first Sunday after they moved in they decided to forsake an old habit and not go to church. Instead they took a long morning walk, and then they decided to take a shower before going out to breakfast. While her husband was in the shower, the wife sat on the screened-in- porch and read. As she was sitting there a snake crawled across the floor. She screamed for her husband. Girding a towel about his loins and arming himself with a broomstick, he went forth like Sylvester Stallone to dispatch the unfortunate monster.

The snake beat a hasty retreat under the sofa. He poked the broomstick around to drive it out into the open. All the noise awoke the family dog and he came in to see what was going on. The dog touched his wet nose to the exposed backside of the stooped-over husband. The husband assumed the snake had crawled out and had bitten him. He jumped up, grabbed the spot, emitted a strangled cry of horror and fainted dead away.

The wife assumed that the excitement had caused him to have a heart attack and she called 911. The paramedics arrived promptly, resuscitated the husband, and gave him an injection to calm him. Then they placed him on a stretcher to carry him to the ambulance.
As they picked him up the snake crawled across the foot of one of the paramedics. When this happened he jumped and tripped over an end table. He dropped his end of the stretcher and fell on the husband, breaking his leg.

The moral of this story is that going to church on Sunday mornings can save you a lot of trouble.

(Adapted from a story told by John William Smith in his book My Mother’s Favorite Song)