Free to a Good Home: One Seriously Pissed Messiah

A little over ten years ago I accepted a job transfer from Nashville to The Shithole of the American South. You may have heard it referred to as Birmingham, Alabama. Anyway, moving expenses were included in my relocation package, which meant that I got to sit around in my underwear sipping mimosas while a couple poor unsuspecting bastards boxed all my crap up, drove it to B'ham, and lugged it up three flights of stairs in the Alabama heat.

Once I emerged from my drunken haze and began the arduous process of unpacking, I quickly realized that I had far too much stuff for my cute new apartment. Several boxes -- many unopened -- were unceremoniously stuffed into closets and storage sheds so that I could forget about them and spend the rest of my precious leisure time laying around drinking more mimosas and watching Judge Judy.

I met my husband during my tenure in Birmingham, and after a few years we were able to escape that shitheap of a city and make a break for Nashville. Unfortunately for us I had to quit my job in order to leave, and that meant that we were going to have to move all our crap ourselves. In order to pack up, The Mister had to unpack some of the previously stowed boxes. He uttered some words about "packrat" and "I cannot believe you still have this shit," but I was too busy thumbing through my special commemorative Duran Duran issue of Rolling Stone and trying on my pink and green argyle socks to pay much attention to what he was babbling about.

At one point he pulled a framed Jesus picture out of the rubble. Since I am decidedly areligious he found this strange and asked if I wanted to keep the picture. I took one look at it and told him that it wasn't mine and didn't know where it came from.

"How did it get here?"

"I don't know. I swear I've never seen it before."

"Was it your Grandma's? Maybe your mom put it in with your stuff or something."

"Grandma had lots of Jesus pictures, but that definitely wasn't one of them. Look at it! He's sneering and frowning and pissed off. This isn't a loving, forgiving Jesus. This is a I Cannot Believe You Assholes Crucified Me! Jesus. I would have remembered seeing this. This is NOT mine."

We decided that the picture must have been mistakenly placed with my possessions by the company that moved me down to Alabama, so Cranky Jesus was placed in the Garbage Pile along with the shoebox full of notes from junior high and pink pleather shoes that I last wore in seventh grade.

After arriving in Nashville and unpacking, a horrifying discovery was made: The Scary Jesus picture.

"Did you take this out of the garbage pile?"

"Hell no I didn't. I don't want that. It disturbs me."

"It was in the trash pile. We don't have anything else that was in that pile, so how do we still have this?"

"I have no idea, but put that fucker in a closet. It'll give me nightmares."

A couple years later we moved again, and once more we put Angry Jesus into the trash pile. Predictably, when we unpacked in the new house there he was again.

"I don't know why you want to keep this picture."

"I don't! I hate it and I thought we threw it away."

"Well someone wants us to have it. We've thrown it out twice. It keeps coming back. It's like Michael Myers or some shit."

So here I sit in our house, preparing to move again. I know that somewhere down in the basement Scary Jesus is lurking in a corner, waiting to be thrown into the trash pile so that he can escape again and freak us out some more.

I don't know why Pissed Off Jesus follows us everywhere. Maybe somebody somewhere is trying to send us a message. Unfortunately for us I'm pretty sure that message involves the words "burn" and "in everlasting hell."