So I’m walking down the road by myself, reflecting on a full day of classes. A full day of being asked about my accent, explaining that, no, I actually prefer the weather here, and having to explain that we don’t do RE in the US (Me: “It’s illegal in state schools.” Englisher Type: “[*doing a spit-take with a mouthful of Hob Nobs and tea*] WOT? Ah you sehrious???”) My mind’s swimming with all this new information I have to deal with, all these new people to socialize with, and all these new cultural norms I have to wrap my mind around.
And suddenly I see a nun. I’m half blind and she’s about a football field away, but man do I have nun radar. Well, radar suggests it’s an intentional and deliberate thing, whereas the truth of the matter (as I explained in the previous post) is that I get distracted by celibate clergy in the same way that small children get distracted by shiny objects. She’s about to enter the Pitt Rivers Museum, so I take off running, cutting across the sacred English grass like a rocket. Well, I say rocket but I’m such a fat ass that I took off more like a wonky-legged ox with a weight problem. But even wonky-legged oxen make it to Oregon eventually, and before long I had caught up with the nun inside this famous museum.
Look, I promise that not every post on this blog is going to be about how nuns, monks and priests don’t have sex. But I’m not gonna lie and tell you that it’s not going to come up often. So anyway, the reason I’m running after this nun is that I want to spy. I want to follow her around so that I can know what nuns do in their spare time. What does a person who doesn’t have sex do?
The answer: They stare at dead Shetland ponies.
I’m not sure how, nor am I sure of the more important Why, but there is a dead, stuffed Shetland pony right in the entry hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Apparently it’s been dead for longer than I’ve been alive, and it just sort of lumpily stands there with an empty look in its glass eyes for all eternity. I can’t stop imagining that the soul of this poor dead creature is looking down from Shetland Pony Heaven, indignantly reflecting on the fact that Shetland ponies don’t stuff dead humans and put them in museums for comically small horses to stare at.
But you know, I’m not here to talk about the ethics of taxidermy. I’m here to talk about nuns. So this nun that I’ve chased after is just standing there in silent reverence of this creature that is the animal kingdom’s version of a fun size pack of M&M’s. There was a sign in front of this pickled animal that encouraged the museum visitors to “PLEASE TOUCH!” And I’d like to hope that, among the various other things nuns silently contemplate at all times, the nun was silently contemplating whether or not to give this dead pony a good stroke.
Do it, Sister. And I mean that in the sense of the larger sisterhood of all women, not the sisterhood of nuns. Or traveling pants for that matter.
Obviously I had to leave at some point. The nun seemed to be giving this particular dead animal some seriously long consideration, and I couldn’t just sneak around all afternoon, hiding behind dead cheetahs and ducking behind deceased penguins just to see if this nun eventually touched the Shetland pony. But I’d like to think she did.
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