The Immaculate Conception.

 Sunday.

Brian was filling up a vending machine in the church shop.

"We don't want a crowded Heaven." he thought to himself.

Father Mike walked past. He staggered a bit. He'd just done two masses and wine in the morning always made him feel a bit lightheaded.

from Taihape

Mrs. Brown was running late. She put two paper shopping bags on the counter.

"Lingerie that was donated." she told Brian.

"Put them under the vending machine." said Brian.

Father Mike was leaning on the counter looking a bit worse for wear.

"Father, how do you tell an immaculate conception?" asked Mrs. Brown.

Father Mike was thinking of Taihape and took a while to respond.

"Well, you only see them when God is around. Why do you ask?"

"My fourteen year old daughter Marcy is pregnant and is claiming that it was an immaculate conception. She's a good girl. Could she be telling the truth?"

"Well, that's unlikely. It would really mean that Jesus is coming back. Frankly, I wouldn't expect him to choose Lower Hutt for his second coming."

Lower Hutt

"Then that would mean that Marcy is lying."

"Has she had any visions? You know, like angels appearing to her?"

That was the giveaway thing about false claims of an immaculate conception - no angels appearing.

For a second or two Brian wondered if the two lingerie bags had anything to do with the presence of angels. He tried to put the idea out of his head.

Still, he couldn't stop wondering if pretty angels wore lingerie. 

Mrs. Brown asked Father if her young daughter might need an abortion. Father Mike was shocked.

"We old men make decisions about a young woman's body!" he snapped back.

He then went into his usual spiel about legalised murder and what the church feels about abortion.

Brian had heard it all before, so he got on with his jobs in the shop. He still couldn't get the image of a pretty angel in lingerie out of his mind. 

Back in Seaview Marcy had met up with a young man who was in her class at school.