#31: Become a minister online.

Call me Sir Nathan, Master of Wicca.

#31: Become a minister online.

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a happy, proud Catholic man. With all the endless issues I've faced, there's no way I would have made it through without some kind of faith. I fully understand this goal to be solely for FUN, and nothing else. I know I have no true religious power, but I like the idea that I am now able to marry Dora and Boots if the opportunity presents itself. Moving on...

When summer started and I was still violently ill, my optimism went on a bit of a decline. Aunt Leah caught this and decided she wanted to help cheer me up. We vowed that we'd make the rest of the summer great. She wanted to find a big goal on this list and cross it off. I didn't have many big goals at that time... Up until June, the list was a little bleak and then I went through and changed a number of goals. One of the goals I changed was #31, which went from being "Walk up a down escalator." to this goal I am now writing about, and 100% of the credit for the idea goes to Aunt Leah. She said her friend Nolan had done it a few years ago for fun and that she thought it'd be a neat and fun one for us to accomplish.

A few weeks later, we finally went on to the website for the Universal Life Church (the online ministry in charge of these fake ordinations). As a minister of the ULC, I am not allowed to trash talk it, so I will simply state facts and allow you to poke fun at it yourself.

1. The ULC will ordain literally anyone of any faith so long as they have a valid e-mail account.
2. The ULC allows you to name your own title for a nominal fee; suggested titles include "Pope", "Child of the Universe", "Minister of Rock 'n Roll" (or "Rock Doctor") and "Master of Wicca".
3. The ULC policy states any ceremony performed by a ULC minister will not be legally valid unless the minister has [aka has bought] their certificate of ordination, minister identification card, and letter of recommendation from the leader of the ULC.

Aunt Leah and I must have spent hours babbling like hyenas on laughing gas over some of the things on the site. Finally, we had me ordained and ordered a book of ceremonies that I could use to officiate unlawful marriages. [Oh yeah, I'm bad! No, I just didn't want to pay them $30 to be validated as a minister.]

We got the book in the mail a few weeks later. Right around that time, John, Mom and I went to cross something off of both of their lists, which was to get some fish and plants to fill his fish tank. Mom picked out two small glowfish (members of the goldfish family who were genetically altered during the gestation period to include jellyfish DNA that makes them both neon-colored and incredibly hyperactive) that she named after her first two imaginary hens, Henny Penny (reddish-orange) and Hurdy Gurdy (orangey-yellow). Both are still happily alive and well as I write this. John picked out a few plants that he liked, although he declined to name them. Unfortunately, they also came with a few snails that Mom and I have decided are John's pets. (He still refuses to name them, though, and has threatened on several occasions to evict them from the aquarium should they continue to eat his beloved seaweeds.) He picked out a small frog for Ashley, that she named Oliver (against her father's wishes, as he insisted it be called Kermit). I got three Black Molly fish, which are these really pretty black fish that are almost velvet looking and love to nibble on your finger if you dip it in the water. The problem with mine is/was that they all look pretty much exactly the same, so it is/was difficult to tell them apart. We ended up choosing one distinguishing feature from each fish to help identify them. I named them each after a Jersey Shore castmember. The one with the black rectangle on the end of his tail is "The Situation", the one with a white dot on his forehead is "Pauly D", and the short plump one with a white spot under her right eye is, of course, "Snooki".

After a while, Mom felt guilty that she had only gotten two of the four hen-fish that she loved so dearly. (It's been a running joke that Mom has always wanted hens simply because she keeps finding fun names for them. Henny Penny, after the childrens' tale, Hurdy Gurdy, after the strange accordionlike instrument, Tallulah Bankhead, after the Hitchcockian actress who also happened to be a heavy smoker, and Jackie Jormp-Jomp, after the episode of 30Rock where the character Jenna is denied the rights to Janis Joplin's life story for a biopic and invents a "totally unrelated" film character named Jackie Jormp-Jomp.) As a result, she had no choice but to go back to PetSmart and buy two more fish. This time, she went to the one in Bel Air instead to see if they had any different kinds of fish, She said the tanks were much dirtier and the fish were not as healthy, but she still felt she needed to get her last two so she picked two guppies, a yellow one and a blue one, and named them respectively Tallulah Bankhead and Jackie Jormp-Jomp. Five minutes later, Jackie passed away at the age of five minutes.

This looks like a job for the newly ordained minister of the family! After smuggling the dead fish into Aunt Leah's house and out onto her back porch, Mom decided to have a funeral and memorial service for beloved Jackie. I pulled out my handy-dandy minister's manual and performed a beautiful ceremony that closed with me rejoining the soul of Jackie with her (actually, his, but shh don't tell anyone) beloved creator. My first [un]official ceremony!

Several days later, Tallulah passed away in her sleep. She was several days old.

We then proceeded to go back to our original, trustworthy PetSmart to get a new blue guppy and a green glowfish to give Henny and Hurdy a pal. We decided not to replace Tallulah as she was a heavy smoker anyway and her emphysema would've killed her no matter how many times we reincarnated her. We named the blue one Jackie Jormp-Jomp Junior and allowed John to call the green guy Kermit as he never got to name the frog Kermit.

A few weeks later, Jackie Jormp-Jomp Junior committed suicide from her loneliness as she didn't have any friends in the tank. Kermit had a heart-attack from swimming so fast and then died of shock when he forgot where he was. I was not invited back to perform their funeral services. We're back to the original five fish and little Oliver. Oh, well! Alex and Wes' fish are hanging on by a thread so I'm sure my funeral expertise will be put to good use again before I can say "Jackie Jormp-Jomp Junior jumped!"

(And I hear wedding bells in Dora's future! Hint, hint Diego and Boots! Fight over her amongst yourselves.)

To get ordained online or see the "wonderful" spiritual titles available for your purchase, please visit: www.themonastery.org