What would Jesus do?

On my second day in Rome, I decided to venture to Vatican City to check out the museums and the Sistine Chapel. I love art history, so that was really the only thing that I wanted to see. The Pope, St. Peter's Basilica, and everything else was really secondary. I woke up at the crack of down because I didn't want to have to wait an hour to get in so I headed down there before the museums even opened. Imagine my surprise when I got off the train and saw a line that was stretched 8 blocks, yes 8 blocks from the entrance! Police were standing around to keep the line flowing so I asked one of the security guards about how long it would take for me to get in. "At least three hours," he said, "two if you're lucky." The thought of waiting in line for anything for three hours made me sick, but you can't go to Rome and not see the Sistine Chapel, so I decided to tough it out.

Hour 1
I'm surprised at how well I'm handled things. I wasn't annoyed yet, and the sun wasn't as hot as I thought it would be. The line seemed to be moving pretty fast, it was looking like it wouldn't take as long as I was expecting!

Hour 2
It's hot. American tourists were driving me nuts. There's a tour group of about 40 Americans that kept insisting on staying together and not letting anyone "break their line" despite the fact that we wee all going to the same place and wouldn't actually get there for another couple of hours.

Hour 3
It's hot. And I ran out of water. My back was hurting and the American tour group was really, really working my nerves. Every two seconds a short little runt woman kept saying to people "excuse me, we're in a group. Could you please not cut our line." There were thousands of us in line and once we reached the 3 hour mark, the line was barely moving anyway. The runt needed to get a clue!

Hour 3.5
By this point was hot, delirious, and on the verge of tears. My back was killing me and the balls of my feet were on fire! The temperature was quickly approaching 85 degrees with 90% humidity, and old people were passing out all around me. I'm a youngin so I could take the heat, but as far as the geezers go, they really needed to pack it up and keep it moving! I got a little dizzy and disoriented so as the line moved, I moved and half the time I wasn't even paying attention to where I was going.

I unwittingly cut in front of the runt and her tour group so she says to me (like she had already said to at least 10 other people in the past 3 hours) "excuse me, we're in a group. Could you please not get in front of us?" I replied, "You know what? You're not the only group. I'm willing to bet there are at least 20 other groups in this line. We're all going to the same place, and we're going no where fast, so you need to relax. You're not the only group." So then she says "well, I know that." I replied, "well then act like you know." By this point, the heat had taken its toll on me and I had already decided a few hours back that I didn't particularly like this woman. The only reason why I hadn't said anything to her before was because they were a church group and a priest was standing next to her. I figured since she was a church lady I would cut her some slack and keep my big mouth shut. But then much to my surprise she said to me, "You're a mean person. All I'm asking is for you to move so that my group can stay together. You're rude, impolite, and inconsiderate. You need to follow the way of Jesus." Those were quite strong words coming from a church lady, so I figured that if she had the balls to say that to me, in front of the Pope's house no less, then all bets were off. I said to her, "I need to follow the way of Jesus? Well, then you need to follow the way of a salon and get that unibrow waxed and a new haircut because it's not 1981 anymore. The Mary Lou Retton look has got to go."

After the words came out of my mouth, I felt horrible! I'm prone to say ridiculous things, but this time I had crossed the line and offended a runt and a priest in front of the Pope's house while waiting to go inside the world's most famous church. True enough it wasn't the nicest thing I could have said to her, but you don't go calling someone mean, rude, impolite and inconsiderate when they're on the verge of heatstroke! That is what you call mean, rude, impolite and inconsiderate…especially when you look like vintage Mary Lou Retton with a unibrow. That's just a smack in the face!