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?