Whenever some unexpected evil causes me to question the existence of a higher power – a stubbed toe, a high car bill or a stubborn ice tray that will not release its cubes – I’ll turn for guidance to the one item that holds a sacred place in our household.
That would be the refrigerator.
I’ll root through the vegetable crisper in search of that otherworldly herb, cilantro, which could only have been created by a being with an appetite at least as ambitious as mine – just mountains smarter and with the ability to order lightning storms on a whim.
Likewise for the salty tang of the yellowed wedge of parmigiano reggiano that transforms a plate of boiled pasta and jarred sauce into something heaven-sent.
Divine intervention is not limited strictly to delicious cheeses, according to reputable sources such as my co-worker Phil.
Several weeks ago Phil, an upstanding fellow who would give you the shirt off his back, lugged into our office a 75-pound hunk of wood flattened at both ends by a chainsaw.
The elderly oak was felled after it threatened to damage the roof of his home.
What caught Phil’s eye was a section of darkened wood on one end of the log.
Was that a cross springing forth from a human head encircled by a ring?
Phil thought so, and he took it as a sign from the Big Guy.
“In the last six months, some major challenges came into my life,” he later explained. “And just a day before finding the stump, I prayed for a sign that my faith will carry me through.”
There was no doubting the image was intriguing, whatever your spiritual inclination.
Some of us saw the head and cross, and others weren’t so sure.
Phil was determined to spread the word.
A U.S. publication renowned for its courageous coverage of two-headed alien babies, bush creatures and Britney Spears offered a measly C-note for photos of the stump.
Phil declined, deciding that the pages of that particular tabloid couldn’t do justice to his story as it may have been positioned next to a doctored photo of a dinosaur eating Manhattan.
In the interest of serious journalism – nobody felt like working –our office staff crowded round a computer and Googled images of unusual looking objects with a religious bent.
The least impressive of the bunch was a stump that its owner claimed resembled the Virgin Mary.
To the untrained eye it appeared like little more than the remains of a sawed-off tree fitted with a rosary.
Arlene scoffed.
“You put a necklace around a tree stump, of course it’s going to look like a woman,” she said as we scrolled through the remaining photos.
The infamous “nun bun” – a cinnamon bun that some claim is the mirror image of the late Mother Teresa – drew similar cries of disbelief.
“Aw, c’mon,” added another colleague of the apparent bakery fakery. “It’s just a wrinkly bun. It doesn’t even look like her. Much.”
Clearly, Phil’s stump stood head and shoulders above the rest.
“It blew those other ones away,” someone else later declared.
Wait until they see my cheese wedge.
