Friday, August 20, 2004

Church Ladies Night Out

Last night was the Episcopal church women's group night out, that we do every three months in lieu of the usual monthly bible study meeting. We met at Olive Garden, which managed to draw in about 10 extra women then we normally get for these meetings, and although the wine wasn't bountiful...the margaritas were. And champagne.

Even though the woman closest in age to me is still 15 years older, I always have so much fun on these ladies' nights out. They all get together, drink and make me giggle all night w/their gossip, talking trash about men and their teenage or twenty-something year old children. The first night I met up with them, they were in the midst of talking about their 18 year olds when all of a sudden everyone got quiet and started looking at me. The "leader" of the pack looked down across the table at me and said, "Just how old are you?" "Twenty-four," I replied, and then the place just wouldn't shut up with comments like, "I could have sworn she was 17 or 18! I was wondering what she was doing here! I didn't know we had women that young at our church!"

A few bottles of wine, and a rendition of "I feel like a woman," later, I was a part of the group and everyone seemed to forget the enormous age difference between us. Now I just can't miss a ladies' night out, because 1) You never know when they need a designated driver, and 2) They're my only group of "girlfriends" I have in town.

Last night was pretty fun, but the best ladies' night out was about six months ago. They all went to "The Melting Pot" which involves a lot of fondues, drinks, and candlelight. They emptied so many bottles of wine, that by the end of the night they were trying to decide who was sober enough to drive everybody home and someone was looking for their cellphone to call the Vicar/Priest to see if he could bring a van over to pick everybody up. The manager of the restaurant came over and said, "Now you said you were a church group? Which church?" To which everybody replied in Unison, "Parkview Baptist!" which is Jimmy Swaggart's local church here in town where all the southern non-drinkin' Baptist folk attend.

Gosh, I love ladies' night out. And I also learned something last night. All of the older church women are just so infatuated and charmed by my English gentleman husband. They just wanted to talk about him all night, which makes me wonder just how much do they think about him? I'm not sure I want to know in what context either. Not after listening to the stories I heard them tell one night when a regular bible study turned into a "sexual confessions" night.

I wonder if we ever have a meeting where alcohol isn't involved?