Overheard at Registration

These days, Beloved Wife and I usually arrive at Friends General Conference Gathering a day early so we can help at Registration the day Gathering begins.

My favorite spot to help out is at the Housing table. This is where people who have problems with their Gathering housing come to get them solved. This presents assorted challenges for us housing volunteers, but we still manage to have a fair amount of fun.

Late in the day Saturday, I'm sitting at the Housing table with the incomparable Barbara A. and another volunteer. The Workshops table is next to ours. Business has finally slowed down, so we're all breathing a little.

A Friend, well-known to all of us, approaches the Workshops table and inquires brightly, "Can you tell me where my workshop is?"

A volunteer at the Workshops table replies as cheerfully as if she hadn't given this answer forty gazillion times to Friends who really should know this by now: "If you look in your packet, it's listed in the Final Program."

"Oh! You actually want me to read that stuff you give me!" the seeking Friend twinkles, clearly laughing at herself.

At which point Barbara intones gravely and severely, "Friends are encouraged to read the Final Program and all other relevant materials in their Gathering packet."

The rest of the Housing and Workshops volunteers try not to crack up.

The Friend who's trying to find her workshop waves her hand and says, "I'm marching in a different Light."

Whereupon we all crack up, and much merriment is had by all.