Mail Order Saint

We dug a hole in the muddy soil… right at the end of our driveway, and buried the small burlap sack in the rain soaked ground, making sure his feet pointed toward heaven. Our black hooded trench coats cast dark shadows over our faces as we stood there… one of us holding a shovel, the other holding a prayer book. With our kids and dog fogging up the windows in the car behind us, we said our prayer quickly… because people were watching…

… And waiting. Waiting to see our house. And probably wondering what the hell we just buried in the front lawn and why we appeared to be having a funeral for it. The timing of their early arrival couldn’t have been worse.

It’s been 46 days now since we buried our little St. Joseph statue in the ground. He’s supposed to help sell houses somehow… some sort of Catholic rabbit’s foot for real estate. Some say he’s supposed to face the street, others say he’s supposed to face the house. We followed the instructions that came with St. Joe and faced him toward the street.

After 30 days had passed with no miraculous offers on our house, we began to place blame directly on St. Joseph. The fact that we live on a busy street next to a house with a zillion statues, pink flamingos, windmills, and fountains… yet none strategically placed to hide the view of the naked hairy Greek man roaming his kitchen… has absolutely nothing to do with it. St. Jo failed us and needed remedial holy real estate schooling. Either that, or…. He was facing the wrong direction?

Yes. That HAD to be it. We went to exhume the saintly underground real estate agent sent to us from the Catholic Discount Supplies store when, to our surprise… he had vanished…or moved. He probably was not to keen on the faded poop brown recliner with the notorious garage sale reject “free” poster taped to it that our neighbors had planted right next to our real estate “for sale” sign…  as if to say “this is a place where you put all your things that don’t sell… including your house. Please… deposit all old lawn chairs, rusty barbeques, and cat pee couches right here… in the ‘not sold’ cemetery. Dysfunctional St. Joseph statues welcome…”  Maybe our neighbors thought we said St. Vincent de Paul?

The point is, the little saintly lucky charm was gone. I called Mister…

“Did you move him?”

“Umm, move who honey?”

“Ugh. St. Joe? Did you move him from his spot? I went to where I thought we stuck him and he’s gone…”

“Why would he be gone? That’s weird. You’re probably not looking in the…”

“No. No. We had rocks on top of him. The rocks are gone, the hole is gone. He’s gone!”

Mister didn’t even have time to go in the house when he came home from work. I ran out and met him at his car like it was an emergency… and with a push on his back, sent him to the end of the driveway to look for St. Joe.

“So? Did you find him?”

“Uhhh, nnnooooo… I looked all over.”

“Did you pull up weeds and grass?”

“Did I what? Uh, yeah… I guess. I dug around. He must be gone. That’s just weird. Wonder why some- ”

I was already out of the room. Pissed off… and madly searching online for the website.

One more order of St. Joseph arrives in the mailbox three days later. Mister and I do the burial again, but this time we face him toward the house. I was hoping for a miracle… and galloped back inside half expecting the phone to ring with an offer… oh my god. Yes… I really had that thought. Shut up. Just, shut…up.

I know… you feel bad that you’re reading this now… like you’re witnessing a person go clinically insane. But let me tell you, maintaining an impeccably clean house with two kids and a dog for almost two months would drive anyone crazy… and make you start to believe that socks can be lucky, spiders can omens, and that plastic statues can sell your house…