Dwight Shrute is Alive and Well and Living in Ogden

Admit it: you would have been disappointed if I was done writing about Ogden. This isn't so much about Ogden itself as it is about our ward. Particularly the people in our ward that sat in front of us last Sunday.

A family of 6 sat in front of us. The parents employed the "bookends" formation to try to keep the kids under control. Wrong move. Let me diagram it out: PooooP (P=parent, o=offspring). It just concentrates all the youthful angst in the center. A staggered formation works much better: PooPoo or oPooPo. That way they are split up and are within easy disciplining distance of at least one parent.

I digress. Anyway, the father starts getting really bothered that his children are playing with their Alma the Younger board game they got in Primary that outlines his path to repentance. So he starts ripping them out of his kids' hands, snapping his fingers in front of their faces and pointing up to the pulpit. Good thing that your snapping fingers are only audible to your immediate family, otherwise it would be really distracting to the rest of us.

He took one of the board games and a pen, leaned over it and stealthily began writing something on it, all the while casting furtive glances at his family to make sure no one was watching. He finished and gave the board game back to his son with a look of immense self-satisfaction. Over the squares that said, "Does not obey" and "Lies", the father had written his son's name. So "Ben lies" and "Ben does not obey". As if the kid hadn't picked up on the message, the father taps the squares with a pen and says, "you see that?" with a smug grin. I should buy some Mad Libs books now, so I can practice that discipline technique for when I'm a father.

At this point, we have barely gotten through a few releasings/sustainings. When the children failed to give their undivided attention to those, the father rolled up the sacrament program and started smacking his kids with it across the cheek. Once again, it was something that could have been terribly distracting if anyone else was capable of hearing the sound of that hollow tube smacking the cheek flesh of his younglings.

So now we are at the sacrament hymn, and they are in a frantic rush to get settled and extra reverent. I guess the mother wasn't pulling her weight with the kids, because the father now starts throwing the children's toys over to her end of the bench and figures the kids will follow the toys. As the mother is scrambling to pick up the mess her husband has just made on the floor, he beans her in the head with a bag of animal crackers as his way of saying, "Fold your arms! It's time for the sacrament! I love you!" *Another hollow smack from the sacrament program/obedience-inducer followed by a wailing child, then frantic and hushed attempts to calm the child.*

I think we all felt a little closer to God that day.