Ass Wednesday

This title is not intended to mock the concept of Ash Wednesday, which is sacred to some folks. Rather it’s to commemorate my first Ash Wednesday, on which I made a complete ass of myself.

Being raised in rednecky Southern Baptist country left me ill-prepared for life in a city with a large number of Catholics, but that’s what I encountered when I lived in Boston for a few years. When I arrived, I don’t think I had ever heard of Ash Wednesday and was certainly unaware of its traditions.

On my first Ash Wednesday in Boston, I was riding the subway (or “T” as they call it) to work in the morning when I noticed the woman across from me had a big smudge on her forehead. Being the helpful sort, I caught her eye, pointed to my own unsmudged head and mimed wiping away the dirt. She gave me a puzzled look, so I repeated the pantomime. She went back to reading her paper -- dismissing me as a lunatic, no doubt.

When I arrived at my stop and exited the train, I started noticing that many other people had smudged foreheads. I joined a veritable smudged-headed horde streaming through downtown Boston and was completely mystified by it until I met a smudged friend on the sidewalk in front of our workplace and asked her what in the hell was going on.

She laughed incredulously and said, “It’s Ash Wednesday, you dumb cracker!”

Years later, I married into a Catholic family and became somewhat familiar with their rituals, including Ash Wednesday, giving things up for Lent and the varying degrees of sincerity the sacrifice can signify. I’m not Catholic, but if I were, I’m afraid I might be tempted to temper my repentance by giving up something really lame like “imported wine” while continuing to swill down California products. I don’t do willing sacrifice well.

[Cross-posted at Rumproast. H/T to J-TWO-O]