First and Long

by Douglas J. Eboch

Hear the story read by the author

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. One recent Sunday Jill Boyer read the scripture in service. Reading from the Bible in front of a church full of people was slightly more terrifying to Jill than taking a honey bath in the bear habitat at the zoo. But when church secretary Tammy Billings approached her, clipboard in hand, during coffee hour and asked her to read, Jill swallowed her fear and accepted. She felt turning down such a request from Tammy would be akin to turning down a request from God.

Jill practiced her passage from the thirty-seventh chapter of Genesis repeatedly in the days leading up to her performance. She always tripped on the same word: “Midianite.” Joseph of the many-colored coat fame was sold to Midianite traders by his brothers. However when Jill read the passage Joseph’s owners always became “Midnight traders.”

Jill’s husband Kevin was sympathetic to his wife’s nervousness and did his best to be supportive. That is until he realized his favorite football team, the Green Bay Packers, were playing a game at noon on the Sunday in question. He suggested maybe Jill would want to trade for a different Sunday to do her reading.

“I’ve practiced this passage fifty times and now you want me to switch?” Jill asked.

Kevin noted the tone in her voice and wisely decided that he did not want her to trade Sundays after all. Instead, he laid careful plans to leave church immediately after the service was over so he could get home in time for kickoff.

He instructed his two daughters, Mary and Susie, to be ready as soon as Sunday school ended. Normally it was pointless to rely on the little girls’ sense of responsibility for anything, but they had long ago learned the dangers of interfering with Daddy’s football viewing.

When they arrived at church, Kevin parked right beside the exit of the parking lot.

“Why are you parking so far away?” Jill asked.

“So I don’t get stuck in a line of cars on the way out,” Kevin told her.

“That’s sill--hic.” The color drained from Jill’s face.

“Did you just hiccup?” Kevin asked.

Jill answered his question by hiccupping again. She often got the hiccups when she was nervous.

“Okay, don’t panic,” Kevin told her. “We have ten minutes until church starts. Go hold your nose and drink a glass of water. I’ll take the girls to Sunday school.”

Kevin dropped Mary and Susie off at the Sunday school classroom and climbed the stairs to the social hall. He saw Jill, her back turned to him, and got an idea. Scaring people was supposed to cure hiccups, right? He tiptoed up behind her, clamped both hands on her waist and yelled, “BOO!”

Nobody said it was a good idea.

Jill jumped and screamed. Then she turned slowly toward Kevin. She had a furious look in her eye and a big red stain on the front of her blouse.

“They didn’t have the water out yet,” she said, “so I was holding my nose and drinking punch.” She crumpled the now empty paper cup in her fist and hiccupped.

Stupid old wives tales, Kevin thought.

“What (hic) am I going to do?” Jill said. “I can’t go up there to read the scripture looking like this (hic)! The service is going to start in a couple minutes!”

“I have an idea,” Kevin said and ran toward the door. He returned moments later proudly carrying a sweatshirt. “I had this in the car. Lucky, huh?”

Jill held up the sweatshirt. It was emblazoned with a Green Bay Packers logo. “Yeah, (hic). Lucky.”

But Jill had few options at that point. She put the sweatshirt on over her stained blouse and they raced into the sanctuary just as head usher Ralph Billings was closing the door. “I don’t know if I can let you in wearing that!” Ralph said with a wink.

You see, Normal, Pennsylvania didn’t have its own pro football team, but due to its proximity to Pittsburgh most of the locals were Steelers fans.

Jill and Kevin took seats in the back. As it got closer to her time to read, her hiccups seemed to get worse. Finally, the choir finished the anthem and sat down. The big moment had arrived.

Jill walked up the center aisle to the lectern. When she stepped up to the microphone a ripple of whispers went through the congregation. Her gaze fell on Kevin. If looks could kill Pastor O’Donnell would have been doing a funeral service that afternoon. But the good news was Jill’s hiccups had stopped. In fact, the cold fury that flowed through her veins so calmed her, she even pronounced “Midianite” correctly. However if Kevin thought she’d thank him for that, he was more foolish than Jill looked.

When she returned to the pew, Kevin leaned over and whispered, “great job, Honey.”

“Thank you,” Jill replied.

“Are you mad?” he asked.

“No,” she lied.

As soon as service ended, Kevin grabbed Jill’s hand and made a bolt for the door. As they left the sanctuary and headed toward the Sunday school rooms, however, Jill held him back.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

“To get the girls. The game starts in fifteen minutes.”

“We ought to at least stop by coffee hour,” Jill said.

“But…kick off…”

Jill shot him another near fatal look. Kevin resisted the urge to duck. “Okay, but can we make it quick?”

“Sure,” she lied again.

For the next hour Jill was the most vivacious social butterfly at coffee hour. She elicited long stories from nearly everyone present. When the Boyers finally made it back to the car they were among the last ones left in the parking lot. “Guess you didn’t need to park so close to the exit, Daddy,” Mary said.

In the end, Kevin had ensconced himself on the couch by the middle of the second quarter. Jill felt a little bad for delaying him and made some hot wings for him to snack on during the game. And the Packers won, so as far as Kevin was concerned, it had been a great day.