Blessed

The Cherry Porter had just been served to me at the end of the bar when the local publican stood up to make an announcement. "Everyone tommorow is the feast of St Blaise, Fr. Walsh will be giving the blessing of the throat to anyone who wishes to have it done." So I turn and sure enough there was the good reverend already blessing the throats of my fellow patrons. Now there are many things I've done in a bar. I've eaten, drank, fought, argued, hugged, kissed, danced and fucked in one before but never have I had a blessing bestowed upon me by a Catholic priest while I held a pint in my hand. No longer being a practicing Catholic I took a couple of minutes to think this through. Being blessed in a bar is a pretty rare thing. I put it right up there with riding an elephant in your local parade. But I hadn't been to church in close to 10 years before this past Sunday. Would my getting a blessing be too much religon this week? I thought about it some more and then turned to a childhood friend of mine who was in the same boat as me with God and asked her if she was going to get blessed. "I don't know." was her response and that was good enough for me as I was about to bless my throat in my favorite way with more Cherry Porter.