"virgin mary appears on window"
by gary r.

what's the deal with all these virgin mary sightings anyway? it seems like hardly a week goes by without some crackpot reporting that mary appeared in their bedroom or toilet bowl or fencepost and then hundreds of other crackpots rush to the scene to tramp around their house searching for proof of the divine. there's always some puddle of oil or ice cream that appears to reflect a face. and since it's weird, it's automatically called miraculous ans since it's a miracle, it must be the blessed virgin mary.

my cousin jill said that she came home one day and there were thirty people standing on her front lawn staring into her living room. come to find out, they weren't peeping toms, they just thought they saw an image of a woman in her glass. now they were blocking her driveway, invading her neighborhood, trampling her grass, and decorating her front yard with rosary beads and statues. within a few minutes, news vans arrived and next thing she knew the line to invade her privacy was wrapped around the block. she finally decided to get rid of the gawkers and their terribly stinky insence by grabbing a bottle of windex and a roll of paper towels. when she went outside they practically mobbed her! the sherrif that had been sent over to watch the crowd wasn't protecting her, he was protecting the window. he wouldn't let her clean it off. after three days of not being able to sleep because of all of the people chanting on her lawn, she grabbed a baseball bat and smashed her living room window to pieces. the tourists scrambled to pick up the broken glass as souveniers, and one even threatened to sue her when he cut himself.

if i were a blessed saint i'm sure i would have better things to do with my time than appear in trees or windows or clouds. when i look into the clouds, i see pirate ships and giant dolphins and once, my ex-girlfriend rosa who dumped me for a guy who i introduced her to at a party. the guy was my friend, i never expected him to go after my girl like that, and i don't see what she sees in him, he doesn't even have a job! but i digress.

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that i know for sure that god does or doesn't exist or that mary doesn't choose to show herself in reflections and shadows but people see what they want to see. i thought i saw brittney spears in a cheeto once, but i didn't make the front page of the paper. my friend once had a pancake at iHop that looked like richard gere, but she ate it anyway. believe whatever you want to believe, but any time i look at a shiny surface, i hope that the only reflection i see is my own.