My Big Debut

I don’t know why she did it, but for some strange reason my sister volunteered *me* to speak at an an African-American Southern Baptist church. I’m not a speaker. I tend to stutter and talk very fast in front of groups of people. I don’t have a clue what they wanted me to speak about. But if my sister had this much confidence in me, I was going to do it. I got busy and wrote a mediocre speech. All I had to do was print it and rehearse it a couple of times.

My plan was to wait until Sunday morning to shop for an outfit, but I had in mind what I wanted to wear. I was going to buy a real pretty dress and find one of those big fancy hats to wear. I wanted to fit in and look like the folks I was going to address, even if I did have another skin color.

I headed off to Indy, wearing a loud floral matched pantsuit. I wore it all day Friday and then again on Saturday. I looked really skinny in it for some reason—like it had removed about 60 pounds from my frame. Sunday, I headed off to the mall to find that perfect outfit. Much to my chagrin, none of the stores were open at 8am on a Sunday morning. I went from store to store and kept finding great outfits and hats on display in the windows, but none of the stores were opening until noon.

I finally gave up and decided I had to wear my pantsuit for the third day in a row, and I hoped no one in the congregation would notice that it was beginning to stiffen up from the constant wear. But the really weird thing was, the slacks somehow turned into a skirt. Still, I didn’t look too bad considering my bare legs that I hadn’t shaved in weeks. But then I remembered I needed to put on makeup. Trouble with that was, I suddenly was sitting in a wheelchair and wasn’t capable of putting on my own makeup. Someone wheeled me to a table set up in the mall, and some kind girls were powdering my face and applying blush.

More interruptions…I had to find a place to hook up my laptop and print my speech. I found myself being pulled from place to place and not getting anything accomplished. And it was getting close to the time of the service.

I got out of the wheelchair and walked around a wall. On the other side, there stood my dad! I nearly passed out from the shock since Dad died over 18 years ago. Then I ran over and hugged him. He told me he hadn’t died 18 years ago, but was lost in Iraq for all that time. He looked so healthy and hadn’t aged one little bit, which only seemed a little strange. I was still mulling over how I could remember being with him when he died, but yet he didn’t die. And what was he doing in Iraq in the first place? He worked at Sears!

Still being dragged all over the mall, I gave up on printing my speech and decided to ad lib it. I would talk about my crazy preparation I was still going through. I would finish up the speech by talking about how there’s a lesson in everything and how even good things come from bad things. I was going to wow them, for sure. All I had to do was to keep my ideas in some sort of order and not start talking a mile a minute. So with half my makeup on, a dirty floral suit, and bare legs, I found myself in a beautiful large church. One of the church leaders met me and was walking me up the stairs to the stage. I was about to inspire a thousand African-American Baptists. They were going to love me—I just knew it!

Then I woke up. What a weird dream.