2001-04-23 :: 9:56 a.m.

My mother just called me to tell me to come upstairs right now to eat a piece of bread she got blessed at church because it's St. George's Day.

During World War II, when there was a blackout and everyone hung black sheets in the windows to avoid getting bombed, my mom's babysitter wasn't paying attention and my mom stuck a peanut up her nose so my grandmother had to rush her to the hospital.

There were planes bombing the living shit out of everything and in the taxi, my hyperventilating grandmother prayed to St. George to make her child okay and if he did that for her, she would make sure that my mother took her ass to church and light a candle every year on April 23rd to thank him. Needless to say, my mother survived the peanut-up-the-nose incident without permanent damage and every year I get to hear the story.

What I'm wondering is whether St. George is the Patron Saint of Not-So-Bright Little Kids, Absent-Minded Babysitters or Unfortunate Peanuts.

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