“look kids! It’s a…it’s a…it’s a rocket ship!”

i haven’t been there yet, but i would still be willing to bet that hell is a lot like bolivar, missouri. it was there, on the unsuspecting stage of baptist bible college, that i revealed my adolescent indulgences to three hundred, hormone-driven teens.

we had been doing hand motions for three days, i was ready to kill one of the other sponsors and was dying for a cigarette. so to say i was sick of c.i.y. was an understatement. on wednesday afternoon, killing time before the alternative alleluia band was supposed to play kevin greer decided to stage a mid-afternoon timewaster. as he began to hand-select the objects of his ridicule from the crowd, i began to feel sick. he was going to pick me. i knew he was going to pick me and all of my self-determined denials wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good. i was right.

as i made my way backstage, barely bottling my rage, the stage manager directed me to a sound-proof green room where i received my assignment. “when you get on stage,” the pimple popping ozark intern told me, “make-believe that you are taking off in a rocket ship.” “is that all you have to tell me,” i asked. “oh yeah, one more thing,” he said, “there’ll be a black chair on stage that you can use however you want.” so there i sat, cursing my fate and awaiting my fifteen seconds. although i couldn’t hear kevin from the green room, i could hear the crowd roaring. in that moment, i knew i was being set up. i was right.

when my moment came, i swept the curtain aside as inconspicuously as possible, tried not to look at the six hundred eager eyes that were staring at me and made my way to the chair. i immediately tipped the chair so that its back was resting on the stage, sat down in the chair so that my back and legs were parallel with the stage, clasped my hands together and put them right below my crotch. then, at the word “go” i trembled violently, made thundering rocket ship noises and rapidly adjusted the imaginary yoke between my legs.

after fifteen seconds of my antics, i was overwhelmed by the roar of the crowd. when i stood up, straightened my shirt and looked in kevin’s eyes, i could see that they were filled with tears. when i looked out at the crowd, i saw my youth minister on his knees laughing. i immediately began to panic.

after i made my way off the stage, flush red in the face, i asked my youth minister what the set up was. he told me in a rushed, hyper-ventilating voice that i was mimicking “what i did in the bathroom.”

that was the last time i waxed my rocket ship in a public setting. and that, my friends, is yet another reason that i am not a youth minister.