Dear Never-Mo friend of mine:

Thank you so much for the invitation to attend the new local Mormon temple open house with you! I know the offer comes from a good place in your heart, but I’ll regretfully have to decline. Here’s why.

Been there. Done that.

You see, unlike you, the temple holds zero curiosity for me. I’ve easily been in more than a dozen of them in my lifetime as a full-fledged participant. In fact, (a rare known fact) I, myself, even acted as an officiant or ordinance worker in a temple for a brief period of time.

In short, I know all about it. Some temples are handsomely appointed and even pretty, but I know exactly what happens inside them and so I’ll have to respectfully decline. I’m more than happy to host a question and answer period afterwards, but I won’t be going on the tour this time.

Perhaps the following analogy will help you understand:

Let’s pretend that when you were born your parents belonged to an exclusive, elite country club. You naturally became a member of this club by virtue of your higher birth.

Growing up, you felt special for being part of this awesome country club. Not everyone around you understood the specialness of this club, but you were convinced that they were just jealous of your membership and of the privileges you enjoyed.

Part of this club membership involved the wearing of special club pants, but only the adults wore them. You weren’t quite sure what made them so special because no one talked about them in specifics, but early on you became convinced that these were some awesome pants!

These pants were spoken of so highly that they became the only pants you’d ever want to wear when you grew up. In fact, when adults talked about wearing these pants, they’d get teary eyed and choked up about how amazing the pants felt inside. Whenever you caught glimpses of someone just about to wear these pants, or after just having taken them off, they’d have a very “special”, secretive look on on their faces. It was something you’d never seen anywhere else. Because of this testimony of others, you just knew that these were the very best pair of pants ever!

The thing is… that getting permission to wear these pants took a lot of concentration and preparation. The country club didn’t let just anyone wear the pants. The experience of wearing them was reserved for those people who kept all the club rules.

And there were a lot of rules!

You had to eat certain food. You had to keep your hands off of certain body parts, both your own and of others. You had to have complete faith in the guy who first designed the pants. You had to have complete confidence in the dude who made the current version of the pants. But most importantly, you were required to pay your country club dues if you hoped to wear the pants one day.

No dues. No pants.

Then, the day came when you were grown up enough that you’d get to wear the pants yourself! You’d eaten all the right food all your life. You only touched the approved parts of your own body. You’d believed in both the past and the current pants manufacturers and you were up to date on all your dues.

Finally! You’d get to wear the pants and experience them on the inside!

So, you joined the adults in a private meeting and finally got to put the pants on, one leg at a time just like all the other adult country club members. You actually experienced the inside of the pants for the first time!!!!

At first, they felt like butter. Smooth. Beautiful. Easy.

You looked around at all the other adults smiling calmly, knowingly and completely confident in the experience they had finally allowed you to join.

And then once the pants were on, the country club leader said,

“You’re about to have the one and only, true pants experience. If you don’t want it, you can take the pants off right now. But if you do indeed want the one true pants experience you’ll need to promise that you’ll never tell anyone about it and never even talk about it among yourselves when you’re not wearing the pants.”

You looked around nervously at your parents, siblings and other loved ones who have done this dozens of times before you. So, clearly you just knew deep in your soul that if they’d had the pants experience and loved it so much, then it could only be good.

You confirmed that you were ready to proceed.

The entire universe seemed to be in approval that not only had you prepared so well to wear the pants but also that you wanted to proceed. You were ready, prepared and able to handle the pants experience, whatever it entailed.

And then the country club leader spoke again and said,

“That is good. Now, take a big shit in your pants! Right here, right now!”

WHAT?!!!

You looked around and all your loved ones seemed to be… taking shits in their pants!

Wait! This can’t be happening!

But, it was.

Mom, Dad, Aunt LaRue, Uncle Lorn and even Grandma Packard all seemed to be taking a long, robotic, fulfilling shit in their pants. The country club leader even came around to check that everyone had deposited a nice warm dookie in their pants.

You panicked!

But before the shit-checker got around to you, you realized that the decision to proceed had already been made for you, and you were so sure that it would feel good. So, you too… shat in your own pants that day!

During the next 90 minutes you shat in your pants a couple more times, sat in it, rocked back and forth and spread it around to make a nice thick, chunky racing stripe in your underwear. And after you took the pants off that day… and showered… you never really got to talk to anyone about what happened inside those pants because you promised that you wouldn’t. And everyone else who shat in their own pants with you that day just had big huge knowing smiles on their faces. But they never ever talked about it.

Oh, they talked a LOT about the pants! All the time! They gave lessons about them and they sang about them in country club meetings. They showed them off to others who weren’t members of the club, but only without the underwear and without the shit.

Just the beautiful pants.

They encouraged their children to sing about the pants and hope for the day when they would wear them… They sang how beautifully made the pants were, about the original designer and the current manufacturer and how nicely they smelled.

They gave long, flowery speeches about the pants. They lauded anyone who was strong and brave enough to wear the pants.

But no one ever, ever talked about the shit, or the underwear. Ever.

Fast forward several decades to the day when after much searching, pondering and praying you realized that there’s nothing really true or special about this country club. It’s really just like all the other country clubs, but with some weird rules, strange traditions and some bat-shit crazy, shitty pants!

Then, it dawned on you that while wearing the special pants you’ve been shitting on yourself for 20 years and you are embarrassed, ashamed and only slightly amused. So, you vowed to never ever shit on yourself again. You decided not to even look at the pants again because it just caused you to remember the smell and feel of the shit.

That decision to turn your back on the special pants led some of the active pant-shitters in your life to secretly resent you and to openly reject you. After all, they’ve painstakingly prepared and concentrated so hard to be able to shit in their own pants like they do.

And they know that you know.

10 years, much happiness and heartache later a good friend excitedly tells you that your former country club is hosting a display of their new special pants in the neighborhood. Would you like to go and try them on with her?

Of course, you’ve worn the pants before and you know that they are well made and beautiful, but it also irks you that the special pants display won’t be saying anything about the shitting in the pants or the thickly coated racing-striped underwear.

They’ll only be showing the clean version of the pants and talking about how special they are and how experiencing the pants can bring families closer together.

Funny. Because my not wanting to shit in my pants anymore made some of my family of pant-shitters reject and ridicule me. Apparently, not shitting in your pants means you are unclean, weak, angry and selfish.

Would I like to go with you to see the new and shiny pants on display?

No thanks. You go.

Return and report.