Are You There Margaret? It’s Me, God

Are you there Margaret? It’s me, God. I just saw your messages. Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you—I’ve just been totally swamped. I’m glad to hear that everything went O.K. with your period. It sounded like you were pretty worried about it. My bad for missing all that.

And it sounds like you were nervous about the move to New Jersey, too, but as I’m sure you saw there’s not much I can do about that—it’s technically the Devil’s jurisdiction. Nonetheless, it seems like you made do. I’m glad to hear that you got a bra; I know that was something else you were stressed about. I’ve been pretty stressed, as well, as you can imagine, being God and all.

You see, part of the reason I’m getting back to you so late is that I was bogged down with international crises, which generally push everything else to the back burner. It isn’t that your stuff wasn’t important—it just wasn’t as urgent as some of the other things I was dealing with. Not that you asked, but I had my hands full with Vietnam, nuclear threats, trouble in Suez—pretty much all the bad parts of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

And on top of that I’m apparently expected to drop everything to bless anyone who sneezes. What the heck is that all about? Why? It’s not in any sacred texts—you guys just made it up on your own, and it’s exhausting. And don’t get Me started on how many times senators ask me to bless America at the end of their speeches. There just aren’t enough days in the week, and I should know.

Speaking of, maybe you could enlighten me: What’s the deal with everybody going to church on Sunday? I remember you mentioning that you tried going to a synagogue and also to a church, so maybe you understand it, because I’m confused. I explicitly said that the seventh day was for rest. It was pretty much one of the first rules I made. And what does everybody do? They decide to get together on My resting day and put Me to work. All morning I’m getting requests and questions and apologies, and then, on top of that, millions of people are outright begging Me to fix football games.

Do people really think that’s what I’m here for? To help the Jets win? As if. It’s like when people thank Me in their Golden Globes speeches. I have nothing to do with that stuff. (The one exception being Marisa Tomei’s Oscar win; I just really enjoyed “My Cousin Vinny”—what can I say?)

Anyway, I’m sorry for going on about Myself—back to you. You repeatedly asked Me to speed up your puberty, and give you boobs, which I hope you’ve figured out is kind of below My pay grade. It’s really a system designed to take care of itself. I don’t decide when it hits, and while, yeah, technically I could give anybody a period at any time (all-powerful, yada yada yada), if I give you a period then word will get out, and before you know it I’ll be absolutely swamped with period requests. That’s why I made up that “must increase my bust” rhyme. I figured if you guys put your energy toward that I’d be left alone.

Well, it was great to hear from you, Margaret, and I’m glad everything worked out. We really have to do a better job of keeping in touch. But I should get going—I have to finally reply to the band XTC about the price of beer or something. ♦