Does Your Booty Pop?

Wednesday was one of those quirky nights at work when things just kept getting weirder and weirder.

For starters, as I was walking into the store, I accidentally walked through the set of Friday Night Lights that was filming outside. So if you watch the show and see a scene where a bunch of guys are arguing and throwing papers outside of a Walgreens, look for the clueless woman in the background. That would be me.

Things started out relatively normal, until an hour into my shift when a co-worker discovered a bag of poo that was left in the hall outside the bathroom. Human poo. I'd heard things like that happen all the time at our store, but this was the first time I'd witnessed it. I also got to witness my manager poke it with a stick, which brought much laughter from the rest of us.

After that debacle, we discovered the Booty Pops that arrived in the new shipment. If you're unfamiliar with the Booty Pop, check out the commercial:



Despite the fact that this product makes the feminist in me ache, this is totally hilarious! For a solid 10 minutes me and five other employees were paralyzed by laughter. We opened one up to check them out and one of the guys tried it on over his pants. I think you had to be there to appreciate the hilarity, but it was one of those moments when I looked around and was struck by the beauty of humanity. I think the words of Thomas Merton appropriately describe how I felt in that moment, just insert "East Side Drugstore" where it says Louisville:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream...I have the immense joy of being [human], a member of a race in which God became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

I can somewhat relate to Thomas Merton who felt isolated in his monastic life. Seminary=stigma. I've become known as "the preacher girl" by folks at the store which can be good or bad––as soon as people find out you're a pastor, or learning to become a pastor, they seem to unload all of their sorrows on you. But I'm grateful for the escape from the seminary bubble that this job allows, especially during these moments when we're doubled over laughing at something as ridiculous as the Booty Pop.