So I went to Presbytery again.
It was a last-minute decision, prompted mostly by my own whining. My husband had recently taken a trip to Texas to see his father, after having taken a trip to California to see his mother earlier in the year. "I never get to go anywhere," I sniffled. "You have taken two trips out of town now, and I never get to go ANYWHERE." It was an exaggeration, but I was in the mood for self-pity.
My husband Rick, a man of tender heart, could not bear to see his wife suffer such an injustice in fate and fortune. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.
"Presbytery," I said. "It is starting in Vermont tomorrow."
"You are nuts," he replied tenderly.
Early in our marriage, my husband was of the conviction that I must not really know what I wanted to do on my vacations, because the things that I wanted to do seemed so bizarrely un-fun. Surely, he reasoned, once he had taken me to Disneyland, I would stop complaining about not having yet seen the Egypt display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But in sixteen years of marriage, one learns a few things about one's spouse. And so now, he realized that his darling would indeed prefer watching debates on theology and church practice far more than she would enjoy a day at the spa or a visit to the State Fair.
"Alright, Presbytery it is," he said. "Let's go to Vermont."
Presbytery is a two-day event, beginning at 4:00 PM on Monday, and then running all day on Tuesday. We knew that we would miss the portion on Monday, but it could not be helped, since my husband could only take one day off work. "You could go ahead and go to sleep," I said in the tone of a martyr. "We can get up in the morning early and maybe I'll only miss Monday afternoon and a few things on Tuesday morning ..."
"No way," Rick replied. "Drive up tomorrow morning listening to you wail all the way about how much of Presbytery you are missing? The thought gives me the chills. Let's pack it up."
And so we set out late Monday night for Barre, Vermont. I was practically bouncing up and down in my seat with excitement. Rick's face was set grimly as he mentally calculated how long one could keep three active children entertained in a small town like Barre, Vermont. "I hope at least they have a McDonalds," he murmured.
The children in the backseat of the van looked a little dazed. "We were planning a trip?"
"Your mother wants to go to Presbytery."
And so that is how I came to have a new set of Presbytery Reports. Stay tuned!