As the bell tolls

I just had a management meeting where a topic of discussion was the Angelus bell not ringing properly at noon each day. This meeting is made up of four monks and five lay people, and it's held in the rather dimly-lit monastery board room at a heavy wooden table at 3:15 p.m. on Mondays. This is a very serious meeting in a very serious location. (I'm just setting the stage here, people.) We discuss any number of things, including student activities, maintenance issues, accidents, upcoming events, recaps of past events, and ideas for improvements. I usually pick up a task or two in these meetings; today I volunteered to be the Sign Czar. (Because I am stupid.) I never know what's going to come up at these meetings, and usually something makes me laugh, despite this being a very serious meeting in a very serious location. Today it was the Angelus bell. Only because I got to hear a monk describe the misbehaving bell much like how people experiencing car troubles talk to their mechanics.

"It bongs and then it doesn't. I mean, it's supposed to bong three times, but it stops after the first bong. And then it's supposed to peal. After three sets of the bongs. And it's not pealing. It's not swinging. The pealing is when the bell swings back and forth, as opposed to being hit by the hammer for the bong. Well, the whole sequence is supposed to go bong bong bong, rest, bong bong bong, rest, bong bong bong, rest, swinger."

I gave up trying to be an adult, burst out laughing, and laid my head on my notebook. The principal, sitting next to me, was only slightly more successful at maintaining his composure, but I lost it again when I saw that he had written "bongs and swingers" at the top of his notebook. He told me later that when he retires after selling his sitcom idea for millions of dollars, he knows that the title of this particular episode will be "Bongs and Swingers." I told him that's the title of chapter 52 in my best-selling book.

The principal just walked past my office window, stopped, backed up, and mouthed "Bong bong bong" to me through the glass. And then the church bell started ringing. Of course.