You Know it's a bad day at Mass when...

10) The usher tells you that he's been inspired and is going to call his mom when he gets home to thank her for putting up with him for all those years.

9) In describing what took place during the offeratory, you use the word "headlock" in a sentence.

8) Calories burned during mass via the trips to the bathroom equal or excede the value of a Dunkin' Donut's Boston Cream.

7) At the sign of peace, you get a lot of pity handshakes from fellow parishioners.

6) The woman behind you says, "Some day you'll miss this." and you think, "Not any time soon."

5) Kneelers. Toddlers. Echoes.

4) Going up the aisle for communion, a child wails, "When is it OVER?!"

3) The Eucharistic minister tells you, "There's only a drop." and you take the cup saying "Amen" and taking that drop because you need every bit of grace you can get.

2) You stare in wonder at all the well behaved children and have the eerie thought that the reason You get this battle is God knows this won't deter you from showing up next week.

1) Every one of these things actually took place within the span of one mass.

Follow-up: Why didn't you leave and come back later?
1) Three kids serving on the altar and
2) car was trapped by other cars illegally parked.
3) I did actually leave the main church three times in an attempt to regroup (during songs). Each time, it took for about all of five minutes.

Finally, when mass is over and you trudge to the parkinglot, you discover there is a black Acura parked in the firelane trapping you at the Church hall for the next hour with the bumper sticker "Chose Civility" on it's window.

Everyone here had to work to get to mass such that calling the police seems somehow anti the spirit of Lent. So the kids get to have doughnuts after all that while you wait for the parkinglot to clear and it seems that you should offer it up in sublimation because all of these little problems are merely a toe being poked into the sand of the 40 day dessert.  All you can do is sigh and say man, sublimation sometimes just really really, well it doesn't stink but man does it have to be this hard?

And then unbidden, it hits you that in the end, when you see your self truly and acknowlege that you misbehaved this much in real life yourself; that in the end, God is nice enough to still let you have a doughnut when all is said and done.