Many years ago, while I still worked for the bank, I was attending a wedding when I spotted a girl with whom I was vaguely acquainted. After the ceremony, she was standing by the door, holding a silver collection plate and guests were placing coins onto it.

“Hi Lucy!” I said. “I didn’t know you went to this church.”

“Oh yes, I’m the verger.” she replied.

I was stumped. I hadn’t a clue what a verger was. Was it someone who took people’s money of them? Was it someone who greeted parishioners at the door? Were they like a wedding planner who hung around to ensure everything went smoothly on the big day?

After changing jobs, I was soon to realise that there were many aspects of the Church of England that I was unfamiliar with.

Blooper 1

Like I stated in the “Staff” chapter, if Trudy wasn’t around when a customer came in for a candle, I would get extremely nervous. I had never attended a church that used candles and had no knowledge of anything remotely Anglican.

It may have helped to have had photographs on the counter for customers to point to, but even better would have been a cabinet displaying the vast array of wax items available. This is because churches often asked for candles in diameter and would then give us their request in fractions.

Trudy would confidently scribble fractions down and march upstairs to the attic to find the box that contained the correct candles.

Whenever I went to fetch a candle, I would stare at all the rows of boxes on the shelves and panic. I just didn’t know where to begin searching for the said item. Usually, I would make an intelligent guess and bring a choice of different sizes downstairs with me, in the desperate hope that one of them was the precise article they yearned for.  I often went back upstairs with the same amount I brought down.

“No, I said one and three eighths, not two and a quarter.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I checked all the boxes and these are the nearest size. Would you like to order one?”

A lady walked in on a sunny afternoon and asked me to fetch her a votive candle.

I didn’t know what votive meant. I asked for clarification.

“We are having a vigil. We want to use it for a service we are having on Sunday evening.”

I was none the wiser.

“You know – like the ones that are used for Christingles.”

I could feel tiny beads of perspiration breaking out under my fringe, as I did not know what a Christingle was either. I had heard people talk about Christingle services and I had a vague recollection that this was around the time of Christmas. But it was May. I thought about that lady whom Casper told me about on my first day and I wandered if this woman was thinking I was a little dense.

I imagined her leaning forward and saying,

“Didn’t you ever go to school Dear?”

Even though I asked the lady to describe the required candle in more detail, I must have stopped listening at the most vital point. Somewhere in her description she would have mentioned that the item she was after was only half an inch in diameter.

I trundled upstairs and scanned the rows of boxes. Aha! I was sure I spotted the correct one.

As I descended the last few steps down to the ground floor, the customer looked up at me and stared at my chest. Her mouth opened and remained in that position as she looked around the shop to see if perhaps, I was serving two customers at once. But no, my eyes were on her and I was clutching the product I thought she had asked for.

On placing the candle onto the counter, the poor lady’s legs buckled. I was smiling, happy that for once, I had got it right, but confused by her odd reaction. She clutched her stomach and let out the most enormous laugh – one even more raucous than Sophie’s.

“I wanted a Christingle…” she gasped. “…that’s a Paschal candle!”

I stared sadly at my 18 x 3-inch monstrosity that was obviously more than 6 times larger than what was requested. Later on, I learned that a Paschal candle is used at Easter and that Christingles were those tiny little things that kids push into oranges at Christmas. The thing I had selected would hardly fit inside a car, let alone a piece of fruit.

Blooper 2

I seemed to be developing a habit of confusing Christmas with Easter. Again, my Anglican ignorance came into play one early February when a customer asked,

“Have your books on Lent arrived yet?”

I have never attended a church which practiced Lent or studied the principles. I didn’t even know people wrote books about the subject. I thought that folk just gave up eating treats because they felt guilty, knowing that in 5 weeks’ time, they would be tucking into chocolate eggs.

My customer had used the correct word, but having just gotten over Christmas a few weeks before, I was thinking about all the Advent books we had distributed to churches two months previously. They had been eager to participate in detailed studies about this important time of the year in the Christian calendar. The word ‘Lent’ is similar in sound to ‘Advent’ and the word ‘Advent’, was still in my head.

So, I replied, “Oh, I’m deeply sorry but you’re far too early. They won’t be out until the third week in November.”

Looking back, I realise we should have provided chairs for our customers to sit on.  This would have helped considerably in times like these.

Thankfully, his stupefied expression prompted me to consider my words and work out what had gone wrong. I am thankful also, that I managed to rectify the situation before he needed that chair.

Blooper 3

We had a damages box where soiled or ruined items were placed. Anything that arrived from the warehouse worse for wear were immediately returned, but items on display would also become grubby from over-handling and dust. Twice a year, Casper would choose a time in the month when we would have a big sale, where everything in the damage’s boxes were marked down by 50%.

One day I received a call from a lady who wanted to know the prices of various bibles. She was particularly interested in the “NIV Study Bible”. I raced upstairs to obtain a copy, so that I could describe it to her in detail while on the phone.

She loved the description and was certain that this was the right bible for her, so she enquired about the price. Her voice quivered and dropped an octave as she declared that at, £39.99, it was way above her budget. I comforted her by saying that maybe a loved-one could buy her it for her as a birthday gift, or at least, put some money towards the cost. This was of no use to her, as her birthday was a long way off.

After the call ended, I felt sad for the lady and I prayed that God would bless her with the finances to be able to afford to buy the bible presently.

As I made my way back up to the first floor to put it back on its shelf, I stumbled up the stairs. It fell out of my hands and landed on its top two corners. I picked it up and surveyed the damage. Having fallen from such a height, both corners looked like an accordion where the hard cardboard had compacted into tiny ripples. What a shame! This was now too mutilated to be put back on display and I felt bad that this accident would be yet another incident that would affect our profits.

Then I remembered the customer. After discussing the situation with Trudy, we both agreed that this was a special case. Why make the lady wait until the next big sale?

I ran back downstairs, hoping that nobody else had used the phone so that I could trace the phone number of the last incoming call.

When the lady answered, I explained about my unfortunate stumble.

“…so, it is now classed as a damaged item. Would you be happy to own an NIV Study Bible that has its top two corners all bashed in?”

“Ooh yes! Yes, yes, yes! If that was the only thing that was wrong with it, it wouldn’t bother me at all.”

“Well then, it’s yours for £19.99.”

The squeals of “Thank you Jesus!” that I could hear from the other end of the line, made up for the guilt I had for being so clumsy. I thanked God for answering my prayer in record speed. It wasn’t answered in the way I had prayed, but it certainly blessed the lady just the same.

Blooper 4

Being the Multimedia Queen, the reps would leave me with posters of popular music artists to display in the shop.

Casper however, did not like the way these posters looked dotted around, and so he told me to leave the walls bare.

Therefore, most of them then ended up in the bin, or given away to customers if I knew they were a fan of the particular singer or group. One day, the Kingsway Music rep left me with an A3 size poster of Graham Kendrick and just for fun, I thought I’d put it up in our tiny staffroom.

None of my colleagues objected to this, nor made any comment about it at all, so it remained there for many months.

There had been a long-standing joke between Cammie and I over a certain secular TV celebrity, who I thought was cute. When I had first mentioned this, Cammie’s reaction had been so volatile, that it stirred me up to keep going on about him, just to tease her. It was entertaining watching her facial expressions each time his name came up in conversation.

“But you can’t like him, he’s not a Christian!” she would exclaim, appalled at my flippancy.

I didn’t fancy this guy at all, but I found it so funny watching her squirm and reel in horror at my apparent attraction to this man of the world.

One day, there was a report on the national news about this same guy being spotted frequenting brothels, and Cammie said to me with delight,

“Aha, you can’t like him now – he sleeps with prostitutes!”

Avoiding her gaze, I put on an air of complacency, shrugged my shoulders and simply replied, “So?”

She was suitably horrified and I walked off laughing to myself at how easy it was to wind her up.

Eventually, Cammie came to realise that I was just doing all this to tease her and appreciated the humour. However, in finding a random picture of this man in a magazine, I couldn’t resist the temptation to do one more naughty thing.

I brought it to work and put it up in place of Mr. Kendrick.

Like before, all my colleagues ignored the fact that there was a man staring down at them while munching on their sandwiches, and they never made a comment about its presence, but one morning, we had a visit from the area manager Archie, and just as he was leaving the staff room, he stopped, turned around and said:

“So…who fancies ******?”

I laughed while Trudy and Louise looked puzzled. Cammie however, so repulsed at the thought that Archie might think it was her, instantly replied:

“It’s Sharon!. Sharon fancies him. She put that poster up. I told her not to. He’s horrible isn’t he!”

It was the first time that I felt a little awkward about the situation, so I needed to diffuse to the  issue quickly so he wouldn’t think I was becoming a lukewarm drooler of a hunky heathen.

“Oh, it’s not been up for long.” I explained as casually as I could. “I had Graham Kendrick up before that and he was there for many months.”

Archie picked up his briefcase and peered at me over the top of his spectacles. With a tinge of joviality in his voice he said,

“You sad girl!” Then walked out the door.

I stood there feeling confused. Why was it sad to have a picture up of a well-known Christian singer who wakes up every morning singing, “Shine, Jesus Shine,” rather than one of a young man who likes to hang around the red light district in his spare time?

It took me a while to figure it out but when I did, I cringed and wailed.

“Agh! He thinks that having a poster up of a person means someone is attracted to them, like how mechanics have up calendars of scantily-clad models. Even worse, I declared that he’d been up for months! He must think I have an obsession and is in desperate need for counselling! Oh no, I hope he doesn’t refer me to Ellel Ministries!“

Everything in me wanted to phone Archie and say,

“I don’t have the hots for Graham Kendrick! You misunderstood what I said!”

But it was too late. My prank had backfired.

Cammie didn’t saying anything but her expression screamed,

“Serves you right!”

I ran upstairs and ripped the poster off the wall and threw it in the bin. There was no way I was going to continue sticking images of old men above the fridge, nor those of unregenerate celebrities.

I thought my colleagues believed me when I explained that it had all been a big joke. However, I am not sure the entire crew were convinced. A photograph of Billy Graham suddenly appeared in my in-tray.

Blooper 5

Whenever somebody came in requesting communion wine, the first question we would need to ask them was whether they required alcoholic or the non-alcoholic type.

I had asked this question many times, but this day, my mind was in overdrive. A young woman had requested two bottles and I was off to the attic to fetch them. Just before I mounted the stairs, I rattled off the usual question – or so I thought.

“Red or white?” I said.

She frowned and replied,

“Red!”

“Okay.” I answered joyfully and mounted the stairs.

Something didn’t feel quite right though. She was staring at me earnestly. It was a sort of half mocking, half-shocked glare.

Then I realised what had come out of my mouth.

After we both had a good chuckle at my faux pas, the lady admitted that she was wondering about my understanding of basic theology.

Of all the bloopers, I think you will agree with me when I say that this was the worst. Thankfully, on each occasion, my mistakes had been recognised and rectified before the customer had chance to leave the shop and tell the whole world what an idiot I was.

But it’s got me wondering. How many bloopers did I make that I am blissfully unaware of? Maybe, it is for the best that I do not know.