Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

So-

a Mormon, a Catholic, and a Baptist walk into a church. They were there to attend a Patriotic Concert, even though it was the week before Easter, and they were kind of expecting an Easter-kind-of concert. (Important Side Note: No one knew why this concert was Patriotic rather than Paschal, but if hadn’t been, then there  wouldn’t be this great story.)

When they were all seated they looked up at the front of the church and saw that it was decorated with lots of Americana, as you might expect. The One Whose Church It Was said that, technically, it was against the rules to have that stuff on the altar, but that The Upholding Of The Rules had lost that battle due to the sheer mass and force of nature that was The Choir and The Band.

“Well, yeah,” declared One Of The Others in solidarity, “you wouldn’t see any of that of stuff at my church, either.”

“That stuff? That stuff?”, asked The Third One incredulously. “What-you mean like, stars, and American flags?”

“Well,…yeah,” replied The Second One, quickly coming to the revelation that they were about to lose this battle.

“And that is why I was raised Baptist,” said The Third, “because we are allowed to decorate!”  (within reasonable guidelines, of course).

“Well,” said the One Whose Church It Was, “they tried. But in the end it was the whole choir versus just one guy.”

Just one guy?! Just one guy?!

Well, of course you know what that means.

That means that I got to introduce them all to the game of Just One Guy, as passed down by the inimitable Havi Brooks. As in,

My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”

At first I had a hard time explaining it, and then I was worried that even if I could, that I couldn’t explain exactly why it was so funny. It’s one of those goofy things that someone randomly says, but then starts to snowball and take on a life of its own.

Like, I think it’s Martha Beck who talks about a game that she and her brothers and sisters would play in church to entertain themselves, where you add the phrase, “in the bathtub” to the end of the titles of hymns. As in, “Standing On The Promises Of God-in the bathtub.”

But fortunately the humor translated, and The One Whose Church It Was Said, “Oh, ok. So, it would be like, ‘Anytown Community Choir: really just one guy.”

“Exactly!” I said, always happy to introduce More Funny wherever I can.

And then we settled back to watch the concert.

But before I go, I wanted to ask you-have you  heard the new music by “Belligerently Independent Baptist Design”?

I don’t know whether or not you know this-but it’s actually just one guy.