The tale of the Potluck of Peril
The road to the church potluck dinner is fraught with danger and excitement.
I’ve always prided myself on being a respectable queen — or at least respectable adjacent. I have a new giant bottle of glitter, a purse full of coupons that expired in 1997, and a reputation for always bringing the best tater-tot casserole to the church potlucks. But one recent Sunday morning, disaster struck. I arrived early for the monthly potluck dinner. I strutted into the church hall proudly carrying my prize-winning tater tot casserole, feeling a little bit superior to the others. But fate and technology had other plans.
I placed my casserole in the prime position, between Persuasia Klein’s Orange Jello Salad with the shredded carrots (I hate this combination, but at least it wasn’t green Jello with celery. That’s even worse) and Contasia Von Clapp’s pigs in a blanket, or as I like to call them, “find the wiener.” After delivering my contribution, I sat alone in the corner waiting for the festivities to begin. I thought I might use this time to place a phone call to my favorite beauty salon and make an appointment to give my yellow beehive wig its 55,000-mile wash and set, accompanied by a complete change of high-mileage Aqua Net.
My phone simply would not work. I ran a diagnostic on it, and the report said my storage was full. So, I opened my photo gallery to find a folder I did not remember creating titled: “Spicy Recipes: DO NOT OPEN.” I tapped the folder with the caution of someone applying glitter eyeliner. Inside were more than 37,000 questionable photos of very hot men being very enthusiastic about physical fitness, stretching their limits, and engaging in vigorous cardio without proper hydration. I gasped so loudly that Adora Belle heard me all the way from Davis County. My jaw dropped so far it nearly got caught in my breasticles. Like a whore in church, I guiltily peered around to make sure there were no witnesses. Then I began. Delete. Delete. Delete.
The phone would not let me just delete the whole folder all at once. It required me to select each image, in batches of 99 at a time. Therefore,
My finger began flying across the screen like a hummingbird on espresso. All the while, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one could peek and see what I was doing.
I was a queen on a mission. So focused on cleaning the phone that I neglected to eat the potluck with everyone else, and you know what a supreme sacrifice that was for this queen who is never late for a meal.
But the photos kept coming. Every time I scrolled, there were more men bending, twisting, lifting, lowering, and performing activities that would require me to sign a medical waiver. At one point, I heard myself mutter, “Good heavens, that man needs a chiropractor.”
It was at this precise moment that I heard the church organ begin to wheeze ominously, sending a shiver down my spine and distracting me from my digital dilemma. The clatter of serving spoons and the scent of warming casseroles filled the air, creating a tapestry of both anticipation and mild panic.
Just when I thought I’d conquered the mountain of “athletic enthusiasm,” my phone cheerfully announced: “Items moved to recently deleted.” I froze. “There’s a second location?!” I dove in again, deleting the same photos like I was fighting off a hydra. Delete one, two more appear, all of them doing suspiciously flexible things. My fingers were flying fast enough to be able to whip cream with my bare hand.
But just as my finger began to ache and my patience started to wane, I realized that I’d become the main event at the potluck — unintentionally, of course. A few curious glances drifted my way, no doubt wondering why I was hunching over my phone with such intensity and not defending my casserole’s honor. It occurred to me that in this moment, my reputation for culinary excellence was being overshadowed by my frantic digital housekeeping.
As beads of sweat gathered under my beehive wig — not from the church’s questionable air conditioning, but from the sheer adrenaline of my covert operation — I wondered if anyone else had ever fought such a valiant battle with their own photo gallery. It felt like a rite of passage, a secret test of modern resilience that no etiquette class ever prepared me for.
I had finally restored peace to my digital life. My phone was clean. My church group trusted me again. My casserole reputation has recovered.
I was safe. I had survived the Great Digital Purge of 37,000 “athletic enthusiasm” photos, but I knew the battle wasn’t over. My phone was acting suspiciously warm, like it had seen too much and needed therapy.
As I tucked my phone back into my purse, I tried to compose myself and focus on the rest of the day. There’s nothing quite like a harrowing bout with technology to make you appreciate the simple joys of baked cheese, juicy gossip, and the reassuring presence of sensible shoes. I reminded myself that, in the grand tradition of queens everywhere, dignity is less about what happens to you and more about how gracefully you pretend it never happened at all.
This story leaves us with several important questions:
1. If I proudly bring a prize-winning casserole to the potluck and no one sees me do it, can I still feel superior?
2. Should I begin giving superiority lessons to young princesses in training in Sunday School?
3. How dodgy does it look for a queen of my supreme stature of style and elegance to sit alone in the corner staring at her phone?
4. Were people negligent when they witnessed me skipping the meal and didn’t call an ambulance?
These and other eternal questions will be answered in future chapters of The Perils of Petunia Pap Smear.
