Throughout the day
Oh, dear God,
May I not have thrown away the
Top to the sour cream.
Dear Lord,
Look at all those ants.
Oh, Jesus,
Where did all that water in the
Basement come from?
Blessed Mary, mother of God,
What happened to my hat?
It was my favorite hat.
Mary who is without sin,
Grant by your mercy that someday
I will be able to just call it up
Like I do my phone.
At the workplace
Dear God Almighty,
Why hasn’t that idiot Liam been fired?
Oh, Christ,
I was just about to sign out
For the day,
And now somebody sends me this.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
Is this guy boring.
Almighty God,
Who sees and knows all things,
And for whom all things are possible,
May this guy keel over of a heart attack
Or something.
Sweet Jesus,
Did that meeting have a point?
At the pharmacy
Oh, for God’s sake,
You are not next in line.
Jesus Christ,
Why did the pharmacist have to yell,
“Bowel-prep kit for [your name]”?
Now everybody in the place knows
That I am getting a bowel-prep kit,
And that [your name] is me.
In this, as in all things, Lord,
Your will be done, not mine.
Oh, my God,
That is Aïda,
The young woman from the taco place.
Please may she not have heard that.
At the corn maze
Blessed St. Anthony,
Finder of lost items,
Where am I?
Dear God, I do truly thank you
That you have brought me out of there
And into the parking lot.
Jude, Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes,
Where’s my car?
At the supermarket
Good God Almighty,
Holy, and Merciful,
How do you get these tear-off
Produce bags to open?
I have been pinching what I think is
The top, i.e., the “open” end,
Between my thumb and forefinger
For at least three minutes,
And still I can’t get the thing to open.
Help me, dear God, please.
Almighty God,
Who created Good,
You also created self-checkout.
And now you see
That the “Assistance Needed” light
On the self-checkout machine
That I am using is blinking.
Why did you make the slot for
Cash payment
And the slot for coupons so alike?
Oh, dear Lord,
Now they have to take the whole
Machine apart
To get back the twenty-dollar bill
That I put into the slot for coupons
By mistake.
My enemies, including Dalen,
The self-checkout-monitor guy,
Laugh me to shame.
Lord, be with me in the time of trial.
On the occasion of an audit
Oh, Heavenly Father,
Why did I write down
My daily expenses for entertainment,
Travel, books, magazines, newspapers,
Movies, and postage
On this “Nudism in America, 1949”
Calendar
That a friend gave me as a joke
On my birthday a few years ago?
Please may the auditors forgive me
As I would forgive them if I were
Their auditor
And this calendar were theirs.
At bedtime
Dear Lord,
Losing my phone just now
When I’m about to go to bed,
And it has not been charged all day
And so is out of power
And won’t ring when I call it,
Is one of the worst things
That happens to me.
My tears are bitter;
My bones are poured out like water.
Have mercy on me—
Oh, there it is.
Dear Lord in Heaven,
Thank you. ♦
