How Do You Like Them Apples?

Adam and Eve had belly buttons. I know because they're in all the pictures. The pictures were divinely inspired, so they must have been there; and Adam was made out of mud, so I'm thinking God stuck a thumbprint in him while he was baking, so his eventual offspring wouldn't feel weirded out about their navels. That's the only thing I can come up with and it does speak well of God, who nevertheless went on to do a heck of a lot of smiting, but things were fresh and new then, and everyone felt optimistic.

But if you keep on with this story you'll quickly arrive at more questions than answers. For instance: who did First Sons Cain and Abel get children by? All the possibilities are awkward.

As it happens, this question has troubled people through the ages. It doesn't trouble people at all that nobody ever mentions any daughters of Adam and Eve, because after all they're just females, but speculating about such daughters and their possible coital relationships with their brothers has put religious folk in a flat tizzy for thousands of years. (No more than six thousand, though.) There has to be another explanation. So one theory goes that Cain got a wife from a race of humans that pre-dated Adam and Eve. Which is problematic if you've already swallowed the notion that Adam and Eve were the first and nobody ever said anything about Neanderthals.

So not many people go with that. We're left with Cain and Abel marrying their own sisters, and, as has been pointed out, there's nothing in Genesis that rules out that Adam and Eve had daughters first, especially since they wouldn't have been important enough to mention. Also, Adam had another son, Seth, when he was 130 years old and then he lived another 800 years. Say what you will about our progenitors, they knew how to get lead in their pencils. The idea here is that after a short period of time you'd have scads of humans running around and plenty of broads to choose from, were you Cain or Abel, although they'd all be pretty seriously related.

Which is obviously appalling, or at least frowned upon in most of your modern cults. How can we reconcile this? Easy peasy. God never told anyone he couldn't marry his own sister. Especially since he gave him no alternatives. God didn't have a thing to say about that until he changed the rules and funneled them through Moses. Up until then it was fine. You can't commit incest if there's no such thing as incest, but after a certain point, as outlined in Leviticus, there were all sorts of rules. You don't even want to know. Cain and Abel got in under the deadline.

So we can assume that Cain and Abel had carnal relations with their own sisters.

Nobody said they had to enjoy it.

What The Frock?

A Methodist minister, Rev. Frank Schaefer, is facing a church trial in Pennsylvania for officiating at the marriage of his son to another man.

The General Conference, the top legislative body of the United Methodist Church, has affirmed that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. The Subcommittee On Deciding What Parts Of Leviticus To Ignore, presided over by the Rev. Baconlips, ruled on this and other issues in 2012.

The Subcommittee was originally convened in order to address concerns about Leviticus in light of modern practices. Leviticus has been a flash point for many who point out that the book famously responsible for setting out rules of behavior is about 2500 years old and no longer speaks to a society not composed primarily of goatherds. Decisions were arrived at delicately, though, just in case the third book of the Bible was dictated by God, and was not just something Moses dashed off.

Questions were first brought up by an avowedly feminist contingent that took particular issue with the requirement that a woman needed to atone for having her period, every damn time, as though it were a freaking day at the fair, at the cost of two sacrificial turtledoves. Especially with the ongoing turtledove shortage. Many found the entire area under discussion to be a sticking point. Conservatives warned that ignoring the problem of feminine discharges could lead to a very slippery slope. Moderates prevailed, however, after agreeing that all references to "unclean" might be replaced with "icky."

No one was inclined to quibble with the long list of people one is not allowed to have sex with--although a statement was drafted recommending leniency for those born into particularly large families.

Though there was general agreement on that issue, too many found the easing of restrictions against a man lying with a man to be too much to swallow. There aren't enough turtledoves in the world to clean up that crap, Rev. Baconlips was heard to mutter, before reminding committee members that the penalty for such an act is Death. "Thou shalt not kill," chanted the progressive corner, while traditionalists loudly countered with "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass." Discourse was heated but civil, with what all described as a fluid exchange, as members of the body rose one after the other to introduce their positions; but conservatives mounted stiff opposition to change, insisting that the church must take a hard line, in the end, against homosexuality.

Rev. Schaefer, having been forced to choose between his son and God, chose his son, noting that although the other choice worked out all right for Abraham, it wasn't something he felt he could count on.

Church officials say his recalcitrance is likely to result in a reprimand or suspension at the least, with the possibility that he may be defrocked. In the worst case, Rev. Schaefer could also be subjected to a holy wedgie.

Margaret Day!

It's the Most Underful Time.....of the year! With your panties all shreddy and holes in your teddy but be of good cheer...it's the Most Underful Time...of the year! Oh my goodness, International Day Of Margaret is almost upon us! And just in time, too, wedged in that crotch between Thanksgiving and Christmas when we could all use a lift. There is no more frabjous holiday!

It's been obvious for some time that there would have to be a special holiday in Margaret's honor, and I don't say this just because I was lucky enough to be her sister. Everyone who knew her feels the same way. She was the fire we warmed ourselves at. She was all trumpet-toots and confetti, an entire marching band in size-five sneakers. She was a bright red Skittle in the sofa cushions, she was a parrot crashing a crow convention. Rrraawwwwk! That was her shriek of delight. Delight at the world, delight at life, delight in your very company. Margaret's was the primal shriek of joy, and lordy, could she let it rip.

It's easy to love someone who thinks you're a better person than you really are, especially if she allows you to grow into her opinion. "This changed my life," she'd pronounce, all gratitude and exuberance, and she could have been referring to a new support pillow, a jar-opener, a portable carrier for her oxygen tank. Oh, we lined up ten deep to help change her life, we did. She didn't run out of friends, she ran out of air. The world has had a creak in its spin ever since. If friends could keep someone alive, she'd be here now. Since she's not, there has to be a Margaret Day. That much is clear: but what form should it take?

Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that after my sister eased off the planet, we had solar panels installed. Something needs to be able to take energy out of thin air and bring it inside, and if we can't have Margaret, we have to make do. It's a poor substitute, but there are similarities. Both work better in the sunlight. Both are hot. Both make me deeply ashamed of my underwear.

The solar panels are indirect about it. They come with a read-out on the computer showing our hourly energy production, in smug green, vs. our consumption, in accusatory red. The red line rolls in hills and valleys until we turn on the clothes dryer, and that produces a scarlet spike sharp enough to impale the toolbar. It was no longer possible to ignore the energy waste, and we started hanging our clothes on a line, including my underwear, the condition of which used to be known only to me and God, but now also our neighbors and anyone walking down the alley.

"Rrraawwwk! What is this?" my sister once said, scandalized, plucking something out of the dryer that had started out life as a pair of panties. I had nothing to say in my defense. The frayed cotton hung in tatters from a few anchor points on the elastic. Worse, all of my panties were in the same seedy state.

"This is outrageous," she said, riffling through my laundry. "What does this say about you as a person?"

"Um," I said, struggling. "That I'm not having an affair?"

Looking in my underwear drawer, it is impossible to imagine what it would take to send a pair of my panties to the dumpster.  When we had a puppy, she would find my underwear in the hamper, which is what we called the area on the floor next to the bed, and carefully chew out the entire business section. I wouldn't notice until I cleaned them and pulled them on again and a little breeze would inform me that the only part missing was the part that mattered most, and even then I hesitated throwing them away, if the elastic still looked okay. I'm not proud of this.

A while ago, probably when I was supposed to be doing my taxes, I got a notion to turn the panty and sock drawers upside down and do a thorough purge. The socks weren't any better. Even after the ones with holes in the heels are eliminated, we're hard pressed to get any two alike to pair up; they seem to have gotten their instructions from some obscure chapter in Leviticus. Margaret once told me that our niece's underwear was equally disreputable, and yet that niece feels comfortable informing me that I need to update my style. "Yours are granny panties," she says, which just goes to show. They are not. They are French Cut, entirely different. If you want to see granny panties, you should have seen my own mother's, of voluminous silk with cuffs in place of leg elastic. We used to rig them up over the picnic table on hot days for the shade. Granny panties, my adequately-covered ass.

I invited Dave to join the purge party. "We can do this once a year, in honor of Margaret," I said. "Great," he said. "In fact, we should do that on her birthday." Genius! That gave me eight more months to say goodbye to my underwear.

But Advent is upon us, it's nearly Margaret Eve, and I'm excited. Mark your calendars: International Day Of Margaret is Tuesday, December 13th. The carols have begun. Rrraawwwk The Herald Angels Sing. Little Drummer Boyshorts. The Christmas Thong. Panty Claus Is Coming To Town. Ding Dong Merrily On Thigh. Lo, How The Rosy Bloomers. O Holey Night. It's time to upend those drawers, cast out the old, and tug up the new! Let's hoist a pair of skivvies To Margaret! To Margaret, and the dawn of a fresh and stretchy new year!

If the new stuff doesn't work out, Boxer Day is right around the corner.