Once a month my mother drags me along with her to a ladies lunch group, sometimes we meet at someone’s house and other times we meet at a restaurant. Hey, free food, and I don’t have to cook, so always a bonus! 

Last week, we had lunch at a neighbor’s house with all the traditional Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings. A new sister from the Ward, who had just moved to the area, introduced herself and her chubby-cheeked six-month-old son, then asked me about my boys. “They must keep you busy,” she queried.

I smiled, and then after taking in a slow deep breath, I relied, “Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, Young Men/Young Woman activities, Sea Cadets, gymnastics, trampoline and tumbling meets, swimming lessons, basketball, doctor, dentist and orthodontist appointments, Drivers Ed, voice lessons, choir, band, guitar lessons, concerts, drama productions, and Seminary. I’m not a stay-at-home mom; I’m a stay-in-the car mom.” 

There are certain things I tend to try to avoid. . . like the black plague, and although a woman, I can’t stand shopping. Really, I can’t! Add into the mix, large crowds, normally rational human beings acting like animals or uncooperative toddlers, early morning demolition derbies with shopping carts, and fighting over the perfect parking place. I want no part of it.

Normally, the Thanksgiving holidays are spent in the rural prairie lands of northern Idaho, hours away from shopping malls and Super Wal-Mart’s. However, this year bad weather kept us home and I decided to venture out into the dark abyss known as Black Friday. I thought I had roped an unwilling accomplice into going with me, only for him to ask his boss if there was any work for him to do on Friday. . . chicken. Therefore, my dad went with me instead. He wanted to buy a Tom-Tom at Radio Shack anyway.

This year, we told the two older boys not to expect much under the Christmas tree. We purchased the oldest a new bed a few weeks ago, (at 6’8,” he needed an extra long mattress) while our middle son is going on a school trip to Washington, D.C. on Spring Break. Still all three of them handed me pages of Christmas wish lists that would rival a Harry Potter book. Well, at least the oldest isn’t asking for a car. . . yet.

After giving myself a hernia from lifting the After-Thanksgiving edition newspaper, I thumbed through all the circulars. Observing me looking at the ads, my boys took the discarded pages, and began to circle more items for the wish list. Who are they kidding? 

I’m not going to pretend understanding people who camp out in front of big box stores several days before Thanksgiving.  And I don’t care how deep the discount is, no getting up at o-dark-thirty for me. Although, I did wake earlier then what I normally would. Hey, I wanted to catch some of those sales.

Five hours later, trips to the big box stores and the shopping mall under my belt, as well as, my wallet loads lighter, I had survived; however I can say with all confidence, I won’t try that again.

Sprinkling some salt on my plate and using my fork, I cut into the center of my sunny-side up eggs. I watched the gooey, liquidity yoke cover the egg white, and then placed a forkful of my breakfast to my mouth, when from the other side of the booth I heard a familiar voice tease, “Hey Molly, aren't you forgetting to bless your food?" 

I shot my husband an ‘if looks could kill’ gaze. His hazel eyes twinkled with mischief. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to embarrass me if front of a college buddy of mine, who had come up to visit us this weekend.

“Molly?” My friend coughed, almost choking on his buttermilk pancakes. Yep, like a fish to a worm he had taken the bait—hook, line, and sinker. 

I would kill my husband later—when there were no witnesses around. 

*****
What my husband was doing at the Denny’s that Sunday morning was trying to get a rise out of me by labeling me a Molly Mormon. 

What’s a Molly Mormon? She is a stereotypical “perfect LDS woman,” whose life revolves around the family and marriage and all the social demands of being a Mormon.  

You know the type; she’s a woman who is married with eight children. Her typical day begins at 5:00 a.m. when she gets up and reads nine chapters from the scriptures, before dashing her three teenagers to seminary. Then after making a hearty, healthy breakfast, and getting her husband off to work, she home schools all her children, even the two-year-old. They all work diligently in their studies and projects and never scream or quarrel. After a nutritious lunch, she oversees the practicing of musical instruments, while she prepares the week’s dinners in advance, by freezing them in color coordinated Tupperware. After lessons, she treats her children to milk and freshly baked cookies. When shopping her grocery list is sorted alphabetically and by aisle, she clips coupons, and she makes Christmas gifts for the whole family, to help save money on the family budget. She likes to spend her free time sewing clothes for the family and baking wholesome whole wheat bread. When the husband comes home, there is always a hot dinner awaiting him. In the evenings, there is family scripture study, brushing of teeth, and prayers before bed. She attends all church functions, does her visiting teaching every month, is a Cub Scout leader, and plays the piano for the church choir. 

A Molly Mormon I am not. 
 
Nevertheless, I was quite surprised when the second counselor of the bishopric stopped by for a visit the other day. Inviting him into the living room, and after a few pleasantries, he said he had a church calling for one of us. Not being active in the church for several years, I didn’t think it was me, and wondered what calling they had for my husband now. Then Bro. Thomas turned to me and asked, “Would you accept a calling for the Relief Society Enrichment Committee?”

My mouth gaped open and my eyes were wide in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

The enrichment committee is in charge of planning all of the enrichment nights and activities. Enrichment night is an evening out with the women from the Church, sit at round tables decorated with tablecloths and monthly themed centerpieces, eating mystery casseroles, salads, or food that has actually been prepared from food storage, with lively dinner conversations involving cooking, sewing, canning, and swapping recipes, followed by a religious message, and then classes in parenting and homemaking. You know the feeling when you are in the middle of a crowd of people but feel completely alone? That is how I feel when I go to enrichment. 

Good grief. What do I know about home, family, and personal enrichment? Arts and crafts? Nope, I’m all thumbs. Sewing? I can’t even sew on a button. Cooking? Forget-about-it. There is a plaque in my kitchen that sums up my cooking skills, “I serve three meals a day: frozen, take-out, and microwave.” 

I sunk lower in my chair.  Enrichment nights are not my thing. I don’t even like to go. No, they can’t make me! Don’t they understand, a Molly Mormon I am not?

Welcome to the Socialist Republic of Amerika.

I’m not talking socialist ideals like universal health care or even cap and trade. No, I’m talking about San Francisco’s insane city government that has been a few fries short of a Happy Meal for years now, and has decided to ban toys from Happy Meals. 

 Whatever happened to the good old days when Americans were responsible for themselves? What makes me righteously indignant is when the government intrudes in our lives. Most everyone knows that eating at McDonalds on a regular basis is bad for you, but should it be up to the government to tell us what we can and cannot eat?

 Hang personal responsibility, because parents can’t be responsible for the food choices for own their children. Heck when my boys were little they were more interested in the toy to begin with then the food, and usually left half their meal uneaten on the table. 

 Happy Meals are not the root of all-evil. Families are not breaking up, careers are not being ruined, I don’t know too many families in therapy over Happy Meals, and how many people are injured or killed because someone had one too many Big Macs and got behind the wheel? 

This is infringement on the right of a business to run the company the way it sees fit. It is censorship, and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in America! If you don’t want your children to eat at McDonalds, then don’t go there!! However, if a parent wants to take there child to McDonalds as an occasional treat, it is their right. 

 Thanks a lot Burger Meister Meister Burger for banning our toys!!