Irreverence Is My Superpower

Irreverence isn't my vice-of-choice, it's more a vice-by-birth. I've always been this way...Some people have an inner voice, an inner child, some inner something. I have an inner ungovernable smart-ass.

I can't seem to shake it. It's like fly paper. The harder I try to shake it off the more stuck I get and stickiness is the gateway drug to Irreverence.

Okay, to be honest, I really haven't tried to shake it. Not even on the day I got married, been married 4 times but only two husbands. Married the first guy twice..what was I thinking! 

Married the second guy twice, too, but our last ceremony was a recommittal (OMG..re-committal...boy, could I run with that one!) 

 At the ring part of the ceremony, with husband #two, when the pastor asks, "What tokens do you have to show?" My husband and I look up at each other with love in our eyes and whisper to each other, "Tokens? Tokens? We don't got to show you no stinkin' tokens!"

I just love him. For a good catholic boy he can be pretty irreverent himself!  My husband, not the pastor! 

I get in trouble because a person can be telling me something really serious when suddenly my irreverence gene shifts into gear. My dang face  betrays me! Unbeknownst to me, it breaks out in a smile. Honestly, I'm filled with compassion but the irreverence factor kicks in and takes control of facial expression and body language.

For instance, a friend of mine had their car stolen from the Quizno's sandwich's parking lot on Little Eureka Way. He locked it, but it was a really hot day, so he left the windows open!  

Seventeen irreverent (but classic) thoughts dance into my head, you know, the "two cans short of a case" kinds of ruminations. 

I mean, no one leaves a car parked on Little Eureka Way, let alone with windows down. I know it's Redding and the temperature was a 3-digit-high, but still, hit a drive-thru and keep your car! Luckily, he knows my mind cuts checks that my face immediately cashes without proper I.D.

Luckily, he's my friend and he's okay with my uncontrollable face muscles!

My mother-in-law has diverticulitis but every time she tells me about her symptoms the irreverence gene whispers things like, "Wow, that's pretty shitty!" I don't say it outloud because my MIL doesn't understand me like my friend does. 

I call the irreverent part of my personality "Bill." I imagine him in worn levi's, white t-shirt and a pack of cigarettes rolled up in one sleeve of his James-Dean t-shirt. Bill doesn't actually smoke because I would have to kick him out of the gang  and that probably wouldn't be smart.  Who would take out the trash or clean the bathrooms? None of the rest of us in my brain-gang want to be responsible for that shit....oops!. Besides, it would leave a gaping hole in my personality.

Is there a rehab for irreverent people?  Irreverence Anonymous?  "Hi, my name is Toni; I'm irreverent!" 

"Hi Toni."

I'm afraid of life without irreverence, to be quite frank. Without irreverence, I might get a case of relevance! Pertinence without impertinence, what kind of world would that be? If I lost my irreverence, people might take me serious and that's not a good creek to be up, with or without a paddle!

Besides, I don't really have a problem. I can stop being irreverent any time I want!

“Irreverence is a most necessary ingredient of religion. Not to speak of its importance in philosophy. Irreverence is the only way left to us for testing our universe.”

— Frank Herbert