Humble Pie for Him, Apple Pie for Me

Please share your stories about Patrick and/or Elizabeth! Details in red below.

Our Associate Pastor, Patrick Landau, is moving to the Big Apple with his wife Elizabeth. I fully expect them to make apple pie out of that city, and they’d better save me a piece. Otherwise I will have to serve them a dish of my own.

This post is a teaser of my world-famous humble pie(and yes, I have Patrick’s permission to post this).

It’s not everyday one gets to share a man’s most embarrassing moments with the world. It’s even rarer to have the opportunity to tell one jaw-dropping story his own wife doesn’t know about (yet). You get all of that here. Checks are payable to Chad Thomas Johnston. Make sure you write “Evie’s College Fund” on the memo line.

1) Patrick once left his car running all night, just sitting there by itself. It eventually ran out of gas and, because it was still on, the battery died as well. The next day, he had to fetch and fill a can of gas, jump start his car, and be the bearer of great shame. To this day, his car will not speak to him, and not just because cars do not speak (but this is, of course, the logical explanation for its silence).

2) Another time, in making a dish for his wife (not apple pie, I suspect), Patrick discovered that the recipe called for three cloves of garlic. Not knowing the difference between cloves and heads of garlic, Patrick prepared three heads of garlic for this dish, and proceeded to vampire-proof his residence from here to eternity.

3) Finally—and this is the story his wife does not know about (until now)—Patrick and I once ate at Cici’s Pizza while his wife was in Istanbul. He picked me up in her car for reasons I cannot remember (but this detail is most definitely important).

After an hour or so of moving ourselves a little closer to Type II diabetes, we exited the establishment. On the way out the door, Patrick casually said, “I can’t find my wife’s car keys. That’s weird.” But he kept walking toward her car as if he intended to drive without keys.

As we neared the car, I heard a low, humming sound (and no, it was not a group of monks, humming in the parking lot).

“I think your wife’s car’s running,” I said.

“What?” Patrick asked faintly.

As it turned out, I was correct. Patrick had left his wife’s car running, the doors unlocked, in a public parking lot for almost an hour. I think Patrick was just glad to find the keys. I, on the other hand, was glad the car had not been stolen.

Patrick and Elizabeth, we wish you the very best as you attempt to eat the Big Apple. I know you will fare well there because Patrick has informed me that you are not taking any automobiles with you. I know you will thrive in your new home, and I hope you get to utter that immortal New York City slogan, “Hey! I’m tryin’ to woik hee-yuh!”, by week’s end.

All that being said: I would very much appreciate it if any of my readers who know Patrick and/or Elizabeth would contribute similarly embarrassing stories about them in the comments section below. Please, do not spare them. They’re going to be quite far away from you, and will be unable to inflict bodily harm. 

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

Follow Him on Twitter: @Saint_Upid

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