are nuns really cool?

I saw some nuns on the train the other day. One of them was knitting some beigy wooly thing, and another was reading History Today. Most of them were seventy plus. I guess there’s not much of a market for nunning anymore, now that we have much more exciting religions, like Scientology. Er, hang out on a yacht with Tom Cruise, or wear itchy underwear? Hm. Tough one.

There was one nun who could perhaps be described as “young”, although she fell into that category of people who are just really hard to age. I’d say she was probably somewhere between 18-30, although it’s difficult to tell in those habits. Gok would not be impressed; “Get those tits out girls, show ‘em what you’ve got!”.

Anyway, she looked slightly awkward. You know when you end up in a room full of old people, and you’re all like “Shit, mustn’t talk about sex, alcohol, or drugs”, which is pretty hard when those are the sole components of your life… (who am I trying to kid? I’m writing a blog, obviously I have no life). Anyway, you’re all like “Oh yes, I LOVE crochet knitting! Please would you pass the Rich Tea biscuits?” Which is ridiculous, considering they’ve probably had more sex than you’ve ever had.

Well, not if they’re nuns I guess, but you catch my drift.

Hanging out with old people is just painful. And sometimes, when you’re trying so hard, you can’t help but slip up. It’s like the Fates are conspiring against you. Or God is sitting on a big white fluffy cloud in the sky and saying “Hey Jesus, come have a look at me fuck this bitch over! It’ll be well jokes!”

You drop the biscuit.

 “Oh, fuck it!”

And all their little beady eyes turn to stare at you, like you might as well have shagged Pete Doherty on the Persian rug in front of them, at 4.30pm (which is when Countdown was always on - don’t pretend that you didn’t already know).

Obviously the young nun didn’t drop a biscuit and shout “Fuck!” really loudly. Because that would’ve been hilarious, and a brilliant punch-line, and actually made this blog somewhat interesting. She just stood there looking awkward, and was probably at that very moment wishing she hadn’t signed up to be a nun, or however you do it, and was metaphorically shagging Pete Doherty instead.

Nuns have a sort of collective aura. People give them a wide berth, although given public paranoia on transport, this may simply have been concern that it was a consignment of Al Qaeda terrorists in disguise. Because yes, every terrorist secretly desires to blow up Pontefract Boghill station… (I’d better write “jk” after this, just in case some government organization reads this, and gets the wrong idea). JK. No wait, I mean, er…

That’s one thing that I don’t get, people (namely my grandparents) are so furiously against the hijab, because, well, they’re racist (they can’t help it, they read the Daily Mail). And there are all these intellectual arguments that the hijab is degrading to women rather than empowering, yet no one really thinks this of nuns.

But yeah, you might as well be a llama in a station, for the amount of attention nuns receive. Some people just openly stand there and stare. At least I had the decency to buy myself a latte and pretend to be reading the paper… albeit with two eyeholes cut out. But hey, the Russians got away with that trick for 9 years! Cunning Russians…

And one or two people will wander over and talk to them. Generally old men with beards, who probably think the tales about nuns being pent-up sex beasts who’ll willingly service the needs of any man, even those with dodgy beards, are actually still true. Not that I’m pogonophobic or anything…

Ok, way too many of these paragraphs are ending with ellipses now. Not cool. Possibly a reflection of my wandering and erratic mind although.

It’s like being a nun offers instant celebrity status, simply for having bad dress sense, no sex, and believing in God. Ok, that’s quite a lot of sacrifices one would have to make simply to get noticed, so I’m fairly sure they don’t take their vows for the attention. It must be pretty weird actually. I mean, “Baby Nun” looked like the kind of girl who had always been on the edge of the stage all her life, hanging around where they keep the scenery and props. And suddenly, everyone is watching her wherever she goes. Not in a mean way, more in a mildly interested “Ooh, look! It’s a nun! Don’t see many of them these days!” kind of way. It’s a bit like they’re a species of rare bird; Bill Oddie will be hanging around next with his binoculars. What can I say, he does have a dodgy beard after all. (This would be the perfect place for an ellipses, but no, I refuse to fall into the punctuation trap…)

An ex-boyfriend of mine once told me he wanted to become a monk. I mean, having your BF/GF tell you that they are gay is pretty bad. Not because they’re gay, for all you moral crusaders out there who were about to lynch me, but because you’d feel like you were so repulsive in bed they couldn’t bear to sleep with another woman again. But having them tell you that they want to give up sex altogether is off the scale; “She was so hideous, I was like, I cannot sleep with another human being EVER AGAIN!”

He didn’t become a monk by the way. I think actually, in retrospect, he probably just wanted me to beg him not to. I just punched him and told him not to even fucking dare.

In conclusion, maybe I lied; nuns aren’t really that cool. I’m certainly not planning on becoming one any day soon. But I have a certain amount of respect for them; someone who believes in something so strongly that they are willing to give up so much in life maybe fairly stupid, but they are also very brave. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make such a giant leap of faith, and in many ways I wish that I could. It must be such a wonderful feeling to believe in something so completely, and to be so free of doubt.

So, yep, think I’ve sufficiently waffled for now.

Over ‘n’ out,

Oswald.