Speaking of church signs, I was just thinking about what I was doing last year at this time. I was a temping fool, paying the bills by turning up in a new office every week or two as the administrative assistant du jour.

Right around Fangsgiving last year I was working on First Hill for the Catholic Archdiocese. I was filling in for an admin who was extremely ill. I was enjoying this very much, because I was knocked up by my companion, whom I had just started living with a couple weeks before, and I was still married to my ex-husband. “Hussy” doesn’t even begin to cover it. On my first day, as I was going to lunch, my cel phone rang.

“Hello?”

“SJ?” It was my companion.

“What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to see if you turned into a pile of smoldering ashes when you crossed the doorway.”

VERY FUNNY, Companion. I was fine, but my pentagram was making my neck burn a little. And I could hear a tiny voice saying “RED RUM” that I think was coming from my crotch, but I couldn’t bend over to check because I was starting to show.

So the woman running the department I was working for had a daughter who was probably nineteen or twenty and attending the nearby Catholic university. The daughter, “Lindsay,” used to make a little money doing filing and such when they got backed up. She was a favorite around the office, because people there had known her since she was a little girl.

On the first day that I came in, the head admin had stepped out and I was greeted by Lindsay. My contact at the temp agency said, “Go business casual, but conservative. It is the Catholic Diocese, after all.” When I walked in, I could see that Lindsay was wearing a miniscule tank top that had L.A.M.B. spelled out across her breasts in those shiny silver fabric dots. Suddenly I felt overdressed in my nice maternity sweater.

She was a nice girl, really, and the rest of the week went well. I really liked the ladies there–the place was full of them. Occasionally I saw the Archbishop floating around in his dress and pope hat.

On one of my last days there, the big project was to prepare for a national audit by a government agency that was reviewing how the Catholic Church was dealing with investigating molestation charges. I was putting together binders for the agency, which I was told was composed of ex-CIA, to review. Lindsay was helping with this project as well, as there was a tight deadline. The second-in-command of the office I worked for was concerned about Lindsay’s chosen outfit that day, which was a strapless tube-style top and a pair of tight capris. “You better hope the archbishop doesn’t see you in that,” she warned Lindsay.

Later that day we were carrying the binders and some paper to a conference room so we could stuff the binders assembly-line style, with lots of room to spread out. As we turned a corner, an apparition in a sparkly dress and pope hat appeared at the end of the hallway–the archbishop. “Oh shit!” muttered the second-in-command. Her arm whipped out, shoving Lindsay into a nearby copy room and closing the door. We continued on our way down the hall and passed by the archbishop who was walking toward us while in deep conversation with his assistant. “Hello, Archbishop,” we said as we passed them.

Lindsay was rescued a few minutes later, after the archbishop had moved to another part of the building.