Danger West

I was reminded of a story by this post at Pharyngula, in which the indiscreet use of a confessional is discussed.

It’s all rather futile. I suspect many confessionals have been used in such a profane and earthy manner, along with church balconies, graveyards, pulpits, pews, and let’s not even speculate about the possibilities with rosary beads.

Graveyards?  Yeech.  I guess he’s right though.  They were “Goths” after all.  At any rate, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when I lived with a hopelessly bourgeois West German family (nice people, not to be ungrateful, but we didn’t get along), this kid who got caned in Singapore was all over the news.  The son in this family thought the caning was all good (I think so too coincidentally) and the parents said it was too harsh.  They brought an example, hitherto unknown to me, of a mutual acquaintance (G.).  “You think it’s great when some stranger is getting the cane, but just think how G. would be punished for what he did in the graveyard.”  This got my imagination going.  “What did G. do in the graveyard?”  I ask.  “Nothing, never mind” was the only answer I got.  So my imagination went a little wilder, which just goes to show that if you’re going to bring it up, you better explain.  I found out some time later that he had rolled over a gravestone on his bicycle – rather anticlimactic given what I had been thinking.