Larry's Petition is for the Birds in Several Ways

It's a Monday morning in Riley's Diner. Me and several deacons from Unity First always get together for breakfast on Mondays and Thursdays. I'm normally the first one here. It gives me time to chat with the people who work here, like Millie, who makes these heavenly muffins, and Riley, who owns the place, and Jake-O, this young fellow who's a short-order cook for Riley, and Dee, one of the waitresses, a feisty gal that I'll tell you more about next time.

Anyways, I'm hoping Larry's gonna be the first one here because I really gotta talk to the guy. He's one of our younger deacons, only in his forties, and can get angry -- he calls it righteously indignant -- over the craziest things. Anyone that doesn't agree with him has gotta radical liberal agenda. That's what he gets from listening to too much Bill O'Reilly.

The thing is, after Unity First's morning worship service, I go out to my car and spot this flier on the windshield. It's from Larry. He's rustling up signatures for another petition drive. As if the last one wasn't embarrassing enough. Anyways, it turns out Larry's the first one to show this morning. He joins me at the same two tables we always push together. I don't know how soon before the other guys'll start to wander in so I don't want to pussyfoot around.

I pull the flier, folded up, from my shirt pocket and hold it up for his inspection. "Mind telling me about this petition drive you got going?"

"You gonna sign it?" he asks, waving over to Dee to bring him a cup of coffee. You can't miss Dee. She's got this big head of strawberry red hair. From a distance, you'd swear her head was on fire. She looks like a chubby Olympic torch.

"Depends," I tell him. "You remember the other ones, don't you? You sure the guys at your work aren't yanking your chain again?"

"This one's different."

"They made up that story about someone planning to open a tavern with an all-night daycare center. Instead of thinking about it, you went to the next city council meeting to raise a stink. And it ended up in the paper."

"I checked it out myself this time," Larry said as Dee filled up his coffee mug.

"Like the time you started that petition drive to complain about the movie theater?" I held my cup out to Dee for a freshening-up and asked her to bring over some more cream packets. You can never have too much cream.

"Honest mistake. That's all," Larry said. "I thought they was gonna start showing those dirty sex movies."

"Until you found out 'X-Men' wasn't a dirty movie."

"I thought it was the rating. You can't be too careful with those Hollywood liberals forcing their values on us. Godless heathens."

I picked up Larry's flier and waved it at him again. "Tell me what this one's all about."

"The city council's gonna vote on putting up one of them wildlife sanctuaries on the south side of town. They say they're actually proud of it. Frankly, Unity's no place for these folks to feel free and come flaunt their wild ways."

"Larry, I don't think this wildlife sanctuary is what you're thinking. It's this place for all kinds of weird birds."

"Those pervs are some kind of weird, all right," Larry said. He ripped the tops off a couple of sugar packets and poured the contents into his coffee. "And not only that. They say it's a place for children. Family friendly, they're saying. Can you imagine? We gotta protect our kids."

"When I say weird birds, I'm talking about fowl."

"It is foul, ain't it?" He's stirring his teaspoon so hard I'm thinking he's gonna break the coffee cup. "Makes me wanna puke."

"Little birdies, Larry. I'm talking about birdies. With wings." To make my point, I start flapping my arms up and down. Dee gives me a strange look as she's carrying an order to Coop, this bearded trucker guy who pops in every week or so when his route allows. "This wildlife sanctuary is supposed to be a place for a bunch of them rare birds."

Larry starts to turn pale. The truth is finally sinking in.

"Larry, your heart's in the right place, but you just can't believe the first thing you hear or read. You gotta check out rumors and such talk. Use the mind God's given you. Lots of people say and believe things without finding out the facts." I'm getting through to Larry, but I can't help feeling sorry for the guy.

"Don't worry about it. Most of the folks at Unity are pretty good-natured. They aren't gonna make fun of you."

"I'm not so worried about that," Larry said. He pulls the petition out of his back pocket. "I just don't know what I'm gonna do with these 142 signatures."