Have you heard the good news?

I used to think that Jesus died at exactly 3 p.m. U.S. Central Standard Time. If I happened to be in view of a clock, I’d stop whatever I was doing – riding my bike, flattening pennies on the railroad tracks, hanging out in the Kmart snack bar – and contemplate how Jesus had a really crummy weekend for our sins. This was back when my parents still celebrated Easter. They weren’t practicing Christians by any means. Their ideas about Christianity meant dumping us off at church or Sunday school and coming back a few hours later to drive us home.

Easter was a day when my grandparents would come in from the city and my mother would cook a big dinner. The dinners were usually unpalatable, leg o’ lamb, which I hated. I couldn’t bear the thought of eating an adorable baby lamb so I’d spit out the chunks of meat into one of my mother’s good napkins, or sneak into the bathroom and flush the lamb down the toilet.

To me, the most fascinating thing about Easter was Good Friday. Our church would cover its giant statue of Jesus on the altar with a black bag. We were Lutheran, so our particular statue of Jesus wasn’t some bloody, gory mess like you’d find in a Catholic church, but a fully clothed, clean Jesus in a seamless robe floating in front of the cross with his hands clasped in prayer. Otherwise, I never looked at that statue of Jesus during the rest of the year, only on Good Friday when it was stuffed inside a body bag.

For the past few years, I’ve been telling people to “Have a Good Friday.” I don’t know why I think this is so funny. It doesn’t matter who, co-workers, friends, strangers. I especially like telling non-Christians, like the Indian clerks at Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-Eleven, to “have a Good Friday.” I’m usually greeted with a wide smile and the clerks replying, “Well, you have a good Friday, too.” I know that for the rest of the day they will be telling their customers to, “Have a Good Friday” and that someone will get pissed.

Several years ago I felt compelled to rent one of those bunny costumes with a big head. The Nazis were going to march in Cicero, and I thought I’d show up in the bunny costume and try to spread a little sunshine and happiness, but the head weighed about 60 pounds and I didn’t think I’d be able to outrun the brown shirts in case they decided to stomp on me with their hobnailed boots. Instead, I ended up wearing it to my niece’s birthday party. I was a big hit among all her little friends. Everyone was having a great time at the party dancing to the Spice Girls. The head had a screen over the mouth that allowed me to see. During my appearance as the bunny, my mother kept coming over and asking which of the party guests was my sister-in-law’s psychiatrist, or if I thought my brother was gay. I couldn’t wear the rabbit head for more than five minutes without wanting to pass out. Frankly, I don’t know how those fake Easter bunnies at the shopping malls do it.

This year I am making a big ass, honey-baked ham for Easter dinner. It’s the one time of year that I can practice my extremely limited skills as a homemaker. Last year, portions of the spread were either burning off the roof of people’s mouths, or were stone cold. This year, I’m determined not to get drunk while cooking dinner and get everything to come out hot at the same time. Today when I showed up at the Honey Baked Ham store to pick up the ham, people were cued up outside of the building. I had to wait in line for 45 minutes. There was this big fat guy who weighed about 400 pounds standing ahead of me. He was so obese, that his arms wouldn’t lay flat at his sides like a normal person’s, but were bent at the elbows resting on his flab like one of those thalidomide babies with the flipper arms from the 1950s.

It was 20 minutes before we even got into the building. I felt sorry for all the workers behind the counter because people were screaming at them about how long they had to wait in line. The store had set out tiny plastic cups of food samples in an attempt to appease the angry mob. The fat guy grabbed like ten cups of the scalloped potatoes and started gobbling them down with the little plastic spoons. Then he grabbed 20 toothpicks of turkey samples and started scarfing those down. Finally I said, “Hey, Tubby, how ‘bout leaving some for the rest of us who’ve been standing in line for 45 minutes.” I’m no skinny-mini myself. I could stand to lose a few pounds, we all can. But I’m not so obese that I couldn’t walk down 56 flights of stairs in case I had to escape a high-rise building after a plane crashed into it. This guy was so fat and rude he was knocking over elderly women trying to reach the food samples. No wonder the rest of the world hates us.

Anyway, if my guests don’t want to eat the ham on Sunday, it’s okay with me. I’m not going to force them to eat it the way my parents used to force me to eat leg o’ lamb. No one has to spit it out into a napkin, or flush it down the toilet. That’s not what Easter is all about.