Mass was very interesting today and it had nothing to do with the priest or the sermon, which was very good today … even involved cupcakes.  As David gets older, we've been moving up closer to the altar so that David could better see what was going on around him.  He's had a good track record behaving at church so far.  Today, we sat one pew in front of a mother and a child who I would guess if a few months older than David.  She was very loud all through mass, with the odd giggling/crying.  I so wanted to turn around and remind this person, "Uh you know there's a cry room right back there…'   It was very distracting to everyone in the church.

(An aside to the cry room… I don't do the cry room.  This one is nothing short of a mad house with a box of toys for kids to play with during mass.   One Sunday there was a kid bouncing a rubber ball in there, and lots of parents let their kids run free.   When David was fussy and we needed to use the cry room, Sandy went solo.)

So fast forward to after communion.  I have to go back to my favorite cry room because David needs a diaper change.  Off of the room is a small bathroom and changing table.  No big deal, I've changed diapers before in there.  So as David and I were doing our business a woman opens the door (there's no lock) and only says, "Excuse me, I'll only be a second."  Then the next thing I hear is her dialing a phone.  She's making a phone call in the cry room bathroom while mass is still going on … with someone else in there!?!

Now initially I'm guessing there's some kind of emergency.  Things happen, I work in a 24-hour news environment … I can understand this.   Nope, that's not going to happen in this case.  This woman was making her BREAKFAST PLANS!  She was calling someone to figure out where they were going to meet after she got out of church.  In the cry-room bathroom in the church, with someone else already in the bathroom.

Again, I so wanted to go off on this woman, but I didn't … because I was in church and mass was still going on.  I don't understand why she couldn't walk the extra few steps to the narthex or even out the front door to make that call.  Then again, people always surprise me.

Of course, as I typed this rant the memory of an older woman answering her cell phone during mass in her pew and having a conversation during the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer.  That was at the cathedral in Toledo.

Then there's me who goes into shear panic when I realize I forgot to silence my phone 10 minutes after mass starts and scramble to shut it off.  Guess I have to thank my parents and grandparents for teaching me good manners while I'm at mass.  I may not have liked it 30 years ago, but it's paying off now.