21. The Jesus Cuckoo Clock.
“The Jesus Cuckoo Clock. I had a good friend in elementary school. They lived in a farm house that looked like it belonged to the Addams Family. Every wall in this house had a crucifix on it. Not a small, hand-held crucifix, These where 2-3 feet tall. On EVERY WALL. Bathroom, bedrooms, closets. They had a room upstairs that we were forbidden to go into, so of course we had to sneak in and see. I didn’t know why it was forbidden, but it basically was a Vatican style church chapel complete with burning offering candles pews, alter and 6-foot-tall crucifix with Jesus hanging on it. But this was not the most WTF thing. They had a cuckoo clock they called the ‘prayer clock.’ The clock had the 12 disciples for the numbers on dial, I never knew what came out of the clock on the hour (probably Jesus). But every single hour that clock would go off. My friend’s mother would round up all the kids and make us write thank you prayers and place them in the ‘prayer jar.’ We had to write down thank-you notes to Jesus for everything we did in the last hour and place them in the jar. If we were playing with Legos and had a snack I would have to write down ‘Thank you Jesus for letting me play Legos and eating string cheese.’ His mom would read them and usually would have us edit them, saying things like ‘you had apple juice too, you don’t think Jesus would be sad if you didn’t thank him for the apple juice, too?’
By about 4th grade I refused to go over anymore, it was just too weird. Especially since their mom had just had a new baby, and they ‘didn’t believe in diapers.’ They let the kid crawl around naked, and piss/shit on everything.
24 years later? What happened to the kids? One (the roaming pissing shitting baby) became a Catholic priest. The second youngest moved out and is a transsexual ‘entertainer,’ and the oldest (my friend) became a programmer in Silicon City. The father eventually left the mother.
Did a quick Google search and found a clock VERY similar. The only difference was theirs was in gold leaf/paint, and the numbers were pictures of the disciples.”
