Today at church I climbed the carpeted stairs to see that the room was full. For the past couple of months I’ve been going to Sunday school with the grown population of my lil’ religious community and I’ve enjoyed it quite thoroughly. There aren’t any comatose teenagers or ill prepared teachers fishing for the standard answers (read your scriptures, pray, go to church). In this blessed, large room people think. And discuss, disagree, and occasionally insult others. It’s a beautiful thing.

But today, even though I thought I was perfectly punctual as usual (um…right), the room was crowded, without a single chair to spare. So I trudged down the stairs and begrudgingly entered the room I was supposed to be in, complete with unconscious teens and exactly one ill prepared teacher.

There’s a reason I don’t come to this class, and I was reminded of it the second I stepped into the musty classroom. The teacher, a middle aged housewife, is clinically insane. I grimaced and sat down.

I can deal with insanity, for hopefully obvious reasons, but I can’t stand this woman. I think it’s the way she forms her vowels. I think that’s it. She over exaggerates everything she says, yet talks at a normal speed while trying to move her thin lips as spastically as possible. She misspells every word she writes, and speaks to me as if I’m nine.

Today the dear decided to bring in an object lesson. She had baked a batch of lemon bars, and asked us to say how we thought the dessert related to our testimonies.

This is actually not too far-fetched, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the LDS church. One’s testimony (core beliefs, faith in divine truth, etc.) is discussed often and sometimes through food, but I had some trouble, to be honest, comparing my primary convictions to a tartlet, especially lemon bars. So I shrugged and awaited the slew of varied yet conventional answers.

“They’re solid but kind of squishy.”

“They require preparation.”

“They’re powdery on the top.” (How this is related to one’s belief structure I don’t know, but she wrote it on the board regardless)

Her eyes fell on me.

“Well, I don’t really know.”

“Oh come on,” she nudged with a wide, goofy, toothy grin. “Cantcha think of summthin’?”

“Uh…well…no.”

“Okay, let’s think through this. Rachael’s having a hard time with the question, everybody, let’s help her out.”

I have this smile that’s stuck between a grimace and the result of constipation. I smiled that smile at this point in time.

“Think about it now,” She cooed as if I was too mentally retarded to understand three syllable words. “They’re sweeeeeeee…” She actually started to sound out the word so that I might finish it and feel proud about it.

“Do you mean sweet?” I inquired.

“And sooooooooouuuuuuuu…..”

“……sour?”

“Good job!” She exclaimed. “You got it!”

I blinked. She started to write it on the board. I couldn’t help myself.

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

She turned and blinked at me, capping the marker and placing her hand on the table. “Of course it does. It’s a metaphor, not literal. It means, well…”

“I know what a metaphor is. I simply don’t think this one is apt in any way, shape, or form. I honestly don’t think that my testimony is “sweet and sour”, in any sense.”

“Rachael, sweetie, it’s a metaphor.” She chirped. “And you need to try to be positive and participate, or else you won’t benefit from this class.”

"I will never benefit from comparing my core beliefs and spiritual drive to a lemon flavored pastry, and anybody whose faith is definably ‘sweet and sour’ needs to be shot in the back of the head.”

She cocked her head and looked at me. “Well, okay. You don’t have to participate.” She finally said. She turned to the rest of the class.

“Who can tell me how their testimony can be considered sweet and sour?”