Just past midnight Clotilde, on her way to the kitchen for a warm pickle snack, bumps into Mr. Smiley. "Mr. Smiley!" she blurts. (Mr. Smiley and Clotilde are married just a few years and not yet on a first-name basis). "You startled me!"
"Sorry!" says Mr. Smiley, shifting from one leg to the other.
"Why are you standing here?"
"Just waiting for Roderick to call." Mr. Smiley has a cell phone, but when at home prefers to use the land line in the hallway, the black one with the rotary dial.
"It's kind of late, maybe you should come to bed."
Mr. Smiley puckers and rolls his eyes the way he always does when conflicted. "He said he would call tonight..." He stands on one leg and rubs his foot. "My feet are kind of tired."
In the morning, the Smileys decide to attend services at the Church of Irony, where everything said and done is ironic. Today's sermon: Everything is Predictable.
Mr. Feckless, the minister, speaks from the lectern: "You are all worthless morons and God hates you!"
"Amen, brother!" says the congregation.
Miss Prurient rises to sing the hymn for the day Jesus is A Picture on the Wall.
After the service, Miss Honeysucker serves coffee and doughnuts in the lobby.
"This coffee is swill," says one congregant.
Mr. Smiley sips his coffee, tentatively. He doesn't ordinarily drink coffee, but it seems impolite to shun the proffered beverage. "It seems OK to me," he whispers to Clotilde, who nods silently while nursing Alexander. To the other congregants, Alexander seems a little old to be nursing, but Smileys tend to spoil their young. It gets a little problematic when the brats grow teeth, but Smiley mothers soldier on. Smiley "Child Learning Centers" -- known elsewhere as "Day Care" -- have regular "Mom Breaks" when the mothers troop in to feed the little tykes.
"These doughnuts really suck," says another congregant. Miss Honeysucker beams.
Mr. Smiley takes a sugar doughnut and nibbles on it. It's quite tasty, so he takes another bite, and then another until nothing remains. "Yummy!" he says out loud. "That was delicious!"
"Get lost, creep," says Miss Honeysucker.
Alexander having finished his mid-morning feed, Clotilde tucks her boob back into her dirndl and holds him in her lap. A congregant approaches. "What an ugly child! Is he retarded?"
"Um..." says Clotilde.
"I'm Madge," says the congregant. "And this is my husband Herbert. He's a worthless husband who doesn't earn very much and has erectile disfunction." She gestures to the man standing next to her. who beams.
"Is this your first visit to our Church?" he inquires. "If so, please make it your last because we don't need more stupid ugly people like you."
Madge smiles. "Henry is on the Welcoming Committee," she whispers to Clotilde. "Knock off the hard sell, stupid," she says to Herbert.
Mr. Feckless, the minister, takes Mr. Smiley aside. "With a face like yours," he says, "I'm guessing you have no friends."
"Um..." says Mr. Smiley.
"Well, stay away from the Church of Irony. There's no place here for people with no money or connections."
Mr. Smiley starts to tell Mr. Feckless that he does have money, but then remembers he's in the Church of Irony so he just smiles.
Roderick calls that evening. "Sorry I didn't call last night Mr. Smiley," he says. "Emily Scharf and Megan Cupcake both wanted sex at the same time and I had to extricate myself from a delicate situation."
Mr. Smiley pretends he didn't hear that last sentence. "We went to the Church of Irony this morning."
"How was it?"
"It was nice." Mr. Smiley pauses. "It occurs to me, though that when everything is ironic nothing is ironic."
"That's really deep."
Mr. Smiley doesn't understand what Roderick means by that, so he just smiles.
