Last night, Gerges Mina, 63, was inadvertently poisoned by his wife of 32 years, Bahga Mina, 56. Bahga stated that her husband, Gerges, was complaining earlier in the day of indigestion; so in an effort to cure him, she put sand in his dinner. This was no ordinary sand, she claimed. It was sand of Abouna Yessa. The sand from surrounding the location of the cell of this holy man is reputed to have healing power. It is unclear whether this was actually from said location, since based on rough estimates on the amount of sand floating around the various Coptic communities the location of the cell must now be a 100 foot deep crater in the desert. Unfortunately for Gerges, the sand contained high levels of naturally occurring toxic arsenic and flouride compounds.

(loosely inspired by true events)

During a church holiday celebration, a servant dressed as Santa Claus was attacked by what appears to be St. Nicholas.  Due to the speed and suddeness of the attack, it is unclear whether it was an actually appearance of the saint or just someone dressed as him.  As the servant was “ho ho ho”ing and handing out candy to the children, suddenly St. Nicholas appeared and began pummelling him with his bishops’ staff. During the thrashing, he shouted out, “You fraud you are not me. You have no place in the house of God you representive of commercialism, greed and lust for worldly goods.” St. Nicholas immediately disappeared after the beating.  The servant was not seriouly injured. When asked for a comment, he stated “I knew it was wrong, I should have listened to my conscience. Though the head of Sunday School and abouna said it was okay. Why did he not beat them too.” According to church historians the attack was actually in character for the saint for he slapped Arius during the Council of Nicea.  The children who witnessed the attack were confused, one child asked how can the church celebrated christmas without Santa.

A kindergarten Sunday School teacher decide to teacher the class to say Ekhristos Anesti on Christmas. When confronted by irate parents, he told to point out the inaccuracy of the fact that Christ has risen. When ask several prominent church theologians, agreed with at face value one can say Ekhristos Anesti at any time, it was a stupid thing to do.

After Theophany liturgy, Los Angelos parishoner Soliman Boulos declined to go to his parents to eat the traditional ol’ass, claiming he was tired and needed sleep. His upset mother reminded him of the old saying of whoever does not eat ol’ass on the Theophany will wake up with out a head (it rhymes in arabic) He shrugged it off as he went to his apartment to sleep. His sleep was interrupted with countless nightmares of being headless. Gripped with this irrational fear, he raced to his parents still in his pajamas to get some ol’ass. His mother overjoyed to see him began to cook a full meal for him included the desperately desired ol’ass. His father disgustedly said to him “Be a man” and went back to sleep.

In a local New Jersey church what was supposed to be joyous event turned into a tragic bloodbath, when Stephen Botrous, aghnostos age 30, killed four fellow deacons with his bare hands during the Liturgy. When asked why a distraught Botrous replied “Its not fair. I wait all year for this Liturgy and end up being in the midst of hell during it. The deacon to the right of me believed himself the reincarnation of Mikahail El-Batanoni with a worse voice and no sense of rhythm or pitch. The deacon to to the left of me insisted on recited all the priest parts along with abouna yet stayed silent when we were singing a hymn. The man behind me was just singing any hymn he happened to know, unfortunately they were none of the ones everyone else was praying. The man in front of me apparent was following an old canon where bathing was considered breaking the fast and that he would just keep backing into me stepping on my feet. To top it all off some random kid decides its past his bedtime and sprawls himself across the bench to go to sleep prevents us from sitting for most of the liturgy. It was too much I just snapped.” Botrous in remembering his trauma then broke down in tears. A statement from his lawyer from the firm of Theodorus, Theodorus, Paneteus & Leontius state that “Mr. Botrous has confessed and received absolution for his acts and hope that the courts take this into consideration.” On the conditions of anonymity fellow deacons cheer Stephen Botrous’ actions saying things like “He should be put in the Synaxarium for this.”, “If he didn’t do it I would have eventually.” and “There should be more cullings of unfit deacons and liturgies would be more enjoyable”.

Mina Youssef Sawaris was greatly dismayed to have arrived home after work, to find his mother left him a message on his answering machine wishing him a Happy Jonah’s Feast. ” Why did I not receive the memo” he complained. “I mean if it is something as important to get its own fast and feast, there should be some sort of wide scale notification, mass e-mailing or phone call or something similar”. When informed that such things are church calendars. He replied a busy on the go physician, who is extremely successful and single, did not have time for calendars. Upon further pressing he conceded that if actually went to church he might know these things.