This joins the TikTok “Be Watched. Be Wanted. Be Loved.” ad in my list of “Ad campaigns that reveal something deeply disturbing about current US culture.”

Congrats!!!

Photo of an ad on the side of a bus reading someone on this bus hates you. domu doesn’t.

There is something seriously wrong with the people who came up with and approved this ad. I mean that sincerely; I am not joking.

I know it seems like “But that’s impossible—I’M the cleric who keeps the records!!” must be an exaggeration I am adding to this for the comedy, but I promise you: that is a quote. Seared into my brain!!

Right if they were using Bridgette or—GOD forbid—O’Brian, I’d put a stop to it, but Bridget, Brigid, and Bríd are honestly equally acceptable to me.

Including one who always says Brigid but writes Bridget.

Wherever in speech or writing, my current colleagues genuinely are 60/40 Bridget / Brigid when they address or talk about me.

uh yes. also an “include him but bury him 3/4 of the way down” list.

I also like how she got first listing.

i told her she was dead to me & dead to me she’ll remain.

The thing we kept saying was “Everyone who knew him knew he’d NEVER have an affair with a woman Italian enough to insist her daughter be named ANGELINA.”

Like if you’re going to foist a fake sister on us, make it believable: Clare or Siobhán or Aoife.

Angelina never did show her face at the funeral.

“Oh, ha ha, there must have been a clerical error,” I say. “Maybe our records got mixed up with another family’s?”

“BUT THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE,” says the pastoral associate. “I’M the cleric who keeps the records!”

She produces the bulletin for that coming Sunday.

“Please pray for the repose of the soul of Rep. Michael O’Brien, and for his family as they mourn his loss: (my mother), Angelina, (my brother), and Bridgette.”

—Did your father… have an affair, then? Even so, that’s not your sister’s fault. Could we reserve her a pew on the Mary side, and seat you on the Joseph side?
—Look. I don’t know how many ways to say this: my father had two children. One girl. That girl, now a woman, is me.

—Did she predecease your father?
—No, I promise you: I have one and only one sibling, my brother. I do not now nor have I ever had a sister.
—Again, I know that some Irish Catholics declare family members “dead,” but—
—My mother has given birth two times.

She squints at me.
—I know Irish Catholic families can be… complicated. But funerals are really a time to put aside grudges, and allow everyone to grieve.
—No, I just… don’t have a sister?

I say, just the one pew for family [plus a second pew for his staff], there’s just three of us: me, my brother, our mother.

“What about your sister?,” asks the pastoral associate.

“Oh, hah, no, I don’t have a sister.”

I get there, the pastoral associate explains, No, he hasn’t just stepped out for a moment, he’s on vacation and returning the day before the funeral. But while you’re here: how many pews should we reserve for family?

The day of the funeral gets closer; I continue to receive responses that lead me to believe that he’s just stepped out to the restroom every time I call. Finally, I decide I’ll just go to the parish offices and talk with him in person.

I kept calling the parish and asking to speak with the Music Director about the music for my father’s funeral, and every time they’d say “Oh, I’m SO sorry, he’s not here at the moment, please try back later.”

OK since Christian Bluesky is talking about funeral hymns here is the funniest thing that happened around my father’s funeral:

WE’RE DOING OK RIGHT NOW ALL RIGHT

YOU GOTTA GIVE US THIS ONE

Oh, I received it as such. It made me laugh, I almost reposted it, then I realized it is a weird thing to repost without context and contented myself to enjoy it as it exists.

O God Beyond All Praising is an organ-heavy hymn!

(I think of this often because I feel very attached to it—i was the entrance hymn at my father’s funeral—but if I died while in my current job where there is no organ, it would not have the same feel.)

(this is not my experience of catholic funerals)

ehhhh CAN YOU THO.

because any other liturgy i was planning for myself, i would include it without a second thought.

I keep wondering if Canticle of the Turning has the wrong feel for a funeral.