The Mongolians: February 2007

LDS: The Mind Drug
Saturday, February 24, 2007

Two thousand and six was the year of the No French Fries diet. I made it 365 days without passing a deep fried potato through my lips. Now, after unceremoniously bringing fries back to the menu, it's fries here and potato wedges there and Pittsburgh Style salads all of the time.

Lent is always a great time to renew your new year's resolutions. A lot of Catholics will use these 40 days and nights to give up something in order to try to be a better person, but the effort is usually only given towards a trivial goal. Giving up smoking when you have never smoked or swearing off sex with prostitutes (except weekends, holidays, and whenever the urge strikes) is disingenuous and rude towards the pre-Easter season. I know a girl my age who is still giving up "candy and pop" like a 9-year-old.

But the point of all of this is not to pull the specks out of other people's eyes. It's about removing the plank from your own eye and swinging it wildly as a weapon of justice in Jesus' Holy Militia. That's why, this year I am not going to give up something, but instead I am going to make something of myself. For the next 40 days or so I am going to be a Mormon. I'm not sure if the Pope will be to thrilled at this idea, but the great thing about Lent is that you can make it what you want.

Forty days is not long enough to do all of the Mormon activities so I am going to have to pick and choose like a cafeteria Mormon. I do not plan on getting dressed up in my little outfit and go door to door to tell my neighbors about how Jesus chilled with the Indians back in the day. Swearing is too important to daily life to give it the ax and nixing the caffeine is laughable when I live less than a mile from Starbucks.

I suppose that only leaves one LDS tradition to uphold. No consumption of alcohol. For a month and a half these lips will not allow mind altering libations to pass forth. I do not believe this feat has been attempted since I turned 21*.

This is going to be more difficult than giving up fries. When I was not eating fries, I did not have friends calling me up asking if I wanted to go hang out at Burger King and have a box of fries or two ... or 5. People don't say, "You have to help me finish this keg of fries!" We never played "Fry Pong" in 2006. I don't hang out with any fryaholics either.