It's Not What You Think

Lainy wandered into my room the other night and asked me what the initials for her GA missions study church group stood for again. I responded, not even looking up from my engrossing novel, "The initials G.A. stand for Girls in Action". She nodded and went on her merry way. A few minutes later, she flew back into the bedroom and hissed at me, eyes darting back and forth, "COME HELP ME RIGHT NOW!" Then she scurried off in a major hurry.

I thought to myself, great, she's clogged the toilet up or peed her pants or spilled an entire gallon of milk on the freshly mopped kitchen floor or something similar, so I jumped up and followed after her in an exasperated huff. If only any of that that had been the problem, Friends and Neighbors, but no, nothing can be that simple in Johnson Land.

See, the web address for the Southern Baptist-Sponsored Missions Study Group for Girls ages 1st through 6th grade is www.gapassport.com.

Elaina, who innocently asked me the name of her missions study group, typed into the search bar exactly what I told her: double U double U double U dot girls in action dot com. I assure you that nothing even remotely resembling the G.A. Missions Group was on the home page of that particular website.

I hit the escape key on the keyboard so fast that I might have broken some sort of world record for deleting. Then I had to have a very long and fascinating conversation about things my 38-year-old self was not prepared to discuss with my 8-year-old daughter. (It was a barrel full of laughs. I can't wait to do it again with the other three.)

And after that thrilling (nauseating) discussion, I ordered a web sense filter that promises we'll only get two websites--Fox News and Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family. If you want to access any other sites, you have to type in a 22-digit code, give your mother's mother's mother's maiden name, stare into an eyeball scanner for retina identification, and put your thumbprint on this little decoder thingy. I don't even think that the WMU is cleared for take off by this particular program because the word "women" is in the title and there might be women (even the fully clothed variety) on that site. We'll be having none of that.

Oh, and you can bet your last tithing envelope that the WMU is getting a Sister Sunshine Charlotte letter RIGHT NOW about the urgency of changing the GA name to something, anything else.

Someone wanted to know why in the world I'd put this story on the blog, The Husband being a pastor and all, and I responded, "Duh. You think my Precious Angel isn't going to tell this little gem in her Sunday School class during the prayer request time? Get real." Better to make a preemptive strike and just let it all hang out.

Maybe I could have phrased that better...