Ah Memories...All Girl Passion Play...no not like that

Now I realize this is an odd time to be discussing "The Passion of Christ" but a few people I went to grade school with brought back a memory I thought I had successfully burned.

Those of you that have been reading my blog for awhile know that I am a recovering Catholic. What I am not sure you know is that for 8 yeas I attended an all girls, private Catholic school...wait for it...located in the 'Motherhouse' of a certain type of nun. I am not kidding about the Motherhouse part. That is what it was called. It definitely contributed to my spiritual status as a 'recovering' Catholic. Anyway, we had one very crazy nun (most of them were a little off but this one was a piece of work). She decided that we should start doing a Passion Play every spring around Easter. This woman was really nuts, she was an 'artist' and OCD at the same time. She had such a problem with clutter that when the kids made her birthday and feastday cards she literally looked at them and then tore them in half to throw them away, many times in front of said kids. If a child gave her a gift she would have that child give it to another person.

So, think about it, all girls ages 10-12 in a play that called for 90% adult male parts. It was like the opposite of a drag show. All the male parts had to wear fake beards. They stuck the life-like beards on with this nasty glue that smelled like bad fish. So you have about 80 girls, all struggling with preteen-ness and bad skin and you make them dress up like men and wear BEARDS! Nice. I think that this might be the one case where my parents don't have pics because I would not have been caught dead with proof later in life that I had to dress up like an apostle...with a flippin beard.

The only part that made is somewhat bearable was that since many us were wearing bathrobes with pockets, we could slip our walkmans into them, cover the headphones with the head coverings and listen to music when we wanted. My friend Rachel and I did just that and listened to WHAM! while we were waiting to start the play. For some reason, the nuns never picked up on what we were doing.

The play was just insane. The crazy nun took the script directly from one of the gospels (it was like 2-3 hours long) and we actually had the whole Crucifixion played out. The actual nailing took place behind the curtains but we actually had 3 girls on crosses. Seriously. Think on that for a sec.

I try not to.

And people wonder why when I was in 8th grade I told people I would never send my child to that school.

Senior Cut Day 1991

We were warned, our parents were warned. If we even tried to cut on "Senior Cut Day" there would be severe consequences.

Pah!

My friend J and I convinced our mothers' to write notes. I had a lot of badgering to do but J didn't. Where did we decide to spend our Senior Cut Day? The beach? A pool? The mall? No silly, with our boyfriends...at their private all boys school.

This was before everyone and their little high school kids had cell phones so the timing had to be exactly right. This school was not in the best of neighborhoods and two HS girls standing outside this school would not be a safe thing. J had a car and she drove us to the school. We made it there with no problems and we even snuck inside with no adults seeing us. We were ushered to the Yearbook Room as it was the room furthest away from any adults that might be passing by.

One small problem.

There was Mass in the chapel today and everyone had to attend. This also meant that adults would just be looking for boys trying to get out of Mass. The Yearbook Room had suddenly become one of the worst places to be. Luckily, the Yearbook Room was next to the Mother's Guild Room. There were tons of boxes and shelves for holiday decorations and all matter of motherly guild-y stuff. So the boys hid us behind boxes on shelves. For some reason, we brought books. I don't remember why. I guess it was for when our guys were in class and we had nothing better to do. So we were comfortably arranged on the shelves, books available and Diet Cokes in our hands.
For awhile all was quiet as the boys were at Mass. Then, we heard it. Footsteps coming through the Yearbook Room. J and I looked at each other and froze. We barely breathed as we saw shoes and pant legs enter the Mother's Guild Room. The shoes and pants walked past the shelves, turned and went out the door...

then. shut. out. the. light.

We breathed a sigh of relief when we heard the shoes retreat down the stairs. We just sat there...in the dark...in the all boys school....

After about an hour, our boys came back and rescued us from our hiding places. The rest of the day was spent as honored guests. Boys bringing us lunch, snacks or just coming by to say hi. Eventually, when 8th period rolled around, we even attend a class...in the all boys school...during senior cut day. The teacher was cool and assumed we were there just at that moment, not all day.

And

We got away with it. Their school never caught us, our school never caught us. It went down as one of the best capers in our short history. We still revel in it.