Kentucky!

We got new carpet today, which was very tiring and confusing for everyone involved (me, Mom, the guys installing it, various other animals on the premises (the cats hid and a dog threw up)). So I was pretty distracted when the news came on. There was a story that involved the word “Columbine” and ended with the guy saying that the kids at the middle school all had to sign their names to “Rachel’s Challenge” posted on the wall.

I was staring at my blank computer screen very hard, so it took me a minute to misinterpret this in my usual manner. I misinterpreted it like this: Are they challenging the kids not to murder anybody?

So me and Mom had this conversation:

Me: What was that Columbine challenge thing about?

Mom: Oh. It’s that thing where that girl got shot at Columbine, and they asked her if she was a Christian, and she said -

Me: Oh.

Mom: - but it all turned out to be made up. So it’s a Christian thing they make the kids do.

Me: At the middle school.

Mom: Yeah.

Me: The public middle school with separation of church and state and things going on!

Mom, Exasperated This-Is-Kentucky Voice: Yes, dear.

There was a mandatory Listening To Bible Stories Hour at my public grade school, taught by the same woman who had enforced Listening To Bible Stories Hour for Mom twenty-five years previously. So she has a certain right to roll her eyes at any attempt on my part to act shocked about this.

(Crossposted to SarahPin.com, Dreamwidth, and LiveJournal. You can leave comments at whichever.)