Excuse me, you have a wasp nesting in your hair...

This is Trinity Lutheran Church in the community formerly known as Clara, TX. I love little country churches and this one is completely out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wheat fields and pastures. This church is even more special to me because this is where my granddaddy (who I was very close to) was baptized, confirmed, and married. Knowing how special my granddaddy was to me and how much I loved this church, Cody proposed to me at this church last August. And now my brother and Melanie are getting married in this church this August! We decided to attend a service here a few weeks ago so dad, Dusty, Melanie, me, and Cody all loaded up and went together! Little did I know what an experience this would be for us...

I'm throwing these pictures in below so you can see the inside of the church to get a better mental image of the story I'm about to tell (and let's be honest, I just like them). First of all, as I mentioned, this church is in the middle of nowhere so there was only about 20 other people attending this service and the average age of everyone in there had to be about 75. So you know we had lots of attention on us as the "new people" and we even all got personally introduced by the pastor.

One strange thing about this church (compared to what I'm used to anyway) was that the congregation could request what hymns we sang and I don't mean by writing down your requests and send them to the front. As the pastor finishes introducing my family and telling our life story, he asks for the first hymn request... "537!!!" yells a man in the back with his hands cupped around his mouth as a megaphone. I felt like I was at an auction or something. Don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing things this way...it's just very different from what I'm used to and the enthusiasm stuck me funny.

As the service goes on, I become aware of the yellow-jackets flying around inside.
This wasn't a big deal to me until one landed in the old woman's hair in front of us during the church prayer. Cody and I both notice it. We start finding it hard to pay attention to the prayer as the yellow-jacket seems to be nesting in her beautiful grey curls stiffened with what appeared to be an entire can of aqua net. The wasp nestled his way from one side of her head to the other and luckily she never felt a thing.

The prayer is still going on and the wasp has been in her hair for at least a good 2 minutes now when it starts crawling toward her ear. Cody and I look at each other because we're both thinking she'll for sure feel that and go to scratch her ear while it stings her fingers. She had to be 85 years old and we couldn't let that happen while we watched and waited for it. And it's not like you can tap her shoulder and tell her while everyone is still silent in prayer. SO Cody does the next best thing... He reaches for the wasp with his church bulletin and tries to "flick" it off of her. FAILURE...the wasp only held on to her stiffened curl and Cody ends up moving all of her hair as one solid unit instead.

I lost it at this point but while trying to keep myself from laughing out loud, I started the thing where your shoulders shake uncontrollably. I'm sure it was just one of those moments that seemed funnier because it was an inappropriate time for laughter but Cody and I couldn't stop cause we were feeding off of each other.

Next thing I know dad and Dusty have now lost it, too. I didn't realize they saw anything because when I looked over at them, they both had their eyes tightly shut. It's funny to hear dad tell this story because from his point of view, he's just standing there with eyes closed and concentrating on prayer when he feels the need to open his eyes..."only to see my son-in-law messing with the old lady's hair in front of us!". Our entire pew (which was filled up completely by the 5 of us) was now shaking from all of us laughing so hard. The prayer is still going on.

I finally regain control. The wasp flies out of the poor lady's hair but comes straight for my dad who swings at it with a fully extended arm as if he were scared of the thing. Not subtle at all... and now we've all lost it again.

We were sitting towards the front with about 5 open pews behind us and another cluster of people behind that. There's no telling what these people thought of us because you know they could see us all laughing during the prayer. They may have even seen Cody messing with the lady's hair but it's doubtful that they could tell there was a yellow-jacket in there that was the cause of it all. I'm sure we made a wonderful first impression.

I'm sure this is one of those things that is much funnier if you were actually there but I speak for all of us when I say we hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.