My observations on nuns

I walked into a restaurant the other day with a friend for lunch and was being seated by the hostess when I spotted an elderly woman in a nun's habit at a table. In my mind all I could think was, "Please don't seat us next to the nun, not next to the nun, please please please..." Naturally we were seated directly adjacent to the nun's table. This forced me to have to moderate some of my normal lunchtime language that doesn't usually sit well with nun's, as apparently taking the lord's name in vain is a sin or something like that. In my experience nuns don't have any problem sticking their nose in other people's conversations, and I didn't need to be lectured by some penguin about what I was saying. So better to just tailor my diction in a way that was not so offensive to the ear.

This nun, like many others that I have come into contact was wearing a wedding ring (which is as good an indication as any that the Christian god supports polygamy by the way, I mean think how many brides he has! This is not an indictment of Christian principles by the way...) and sitting with perfect table manners as befitted a person of her reverence. She was sipping an ice tea and reading a book that upon first glance looked like science fiction. Upon closer inspection, she was reading a book that had what appeared to be burning crosses on the front and was named something like, "Understanding the Evil" or "The path of Darkness" or "Darkness and you: the path of evil!" Needless to say it was refreshing to see a nun reading something that appeared to appeal to her secular side.

The whole incident made me recall some of my fond memories and dealings with nuns as well as some of the generalities that a nun exhibits. I will list some of those generalities now:
1) The oftentimes wear wedding rings.

2) They collect things, usually things of little or no monetary value. And they are pack rats. I have found this to be universally true. I once knew a nun who collected all manner of poems, oftentimes recorded on small sheets of paper. The accumulation of which filled her entire nun dorm room, both in boxes and sprawled out about the floor. This made moving her stuff to the new nunnery very tedious and difficult, which brings me to my next point...

3) Donning an habit apparently makes you unable to pack your own things. I know this because I've had to move 4-5 nuns in my time. All of which failed to pack their things even though they knew weeks ahead of time that they were moving.

2a) One of the things that all nuns seem to collect are crosses. If you are ever invited into the dwelling of a nun you will most likely be asked to peruse her cross collection. You will hear some things you may have heard from collectors before, "I got this one from the head missionary in some impoverished nation in Africa!" or "This is from the '94 Franciscan line, a bit too posh for my tastes but I just had to have it. I can't wait for the new Dominican line, it's being shown in Paris next week!" If you are polite you will feign interest, in fact if you know you are going to visit a nun, you may wish to prepare some questions ahead of time to ask her about her crosses. This will gain you extra nun points, which are redeemable for absolutely nothing.

4) The older a nun is the more hilarious she is. If you've ever paid to see a good stand-up comedian, I'm telling you that you could have saved yourself some money and just made friends with an aging nun. Every joke that was ever written/told that starts with, "A priest, a rabbi, and [insert stereotype here] walk into a bar..." was written by a nun of over 75 years of age. They also wrote like 90% of the all time hit comedies.

5) The difference between a house of nuns, and a sorority house is negligible. Do you like cliques? Nuns have them. Like catty fights between women that live under the same roof? Check. Frivolous projects that involve poster board and 2nd grade arts and crafts skills? Check. Fighting and resentment over who has better stuff (read: shoes or crosses or whatever? Check. The only difference that I can tell is that nuns probably talk about fornication less, although not much. And they probably participate in late night rendezvous with gentlemen callers less, although from what I've heard not much.

6) All of them know how to make you feel guilty without trying. A handy skill when you need something done.

7) All nuns possess supernatural nun strength. When it comes to lifting objects they will pretend that they are too frail to do anything. If you say something you shouldn't around a nun, watch out because she's probably going to suplex you. Then take your lunch money...