How to Attend the Temple: In 37 Easy-to-Follow Steps

1- Leave your apartment at 3:05.  Yes, I know that’s FOUR hours before the session starts, but trust me on this.
2- Run to catch the 3:15 ferry.

3- Get nailed by a seagull somewhere between your apartment and the wharf...for the second time in a week.  (The seagulls, they love me.)

 

4- Try not to curse at the bird and your misfortune.  (You are going to the temple, after all.)
5- When you arrive in the city, duck into a McDonald's and steal some napkins. 
6- Moisten the stolen napkins at an obliging fountain and use them to wipe away the seagull excrement from your soiled bag.

7- Continue walking the ten blocks to your hubsy’s place of business.  Only, you should probably half-walk/half-run as you've lost a good deal of time messing with napkins and fountains and seagull poo. 
8- Retrieve your hubs and half-run/half-walk with him another few blocks to the train station.

 9- Take the train to Epping station, about a 45-minute ride.   

10- Walk a couple of blocks to a bus stop, which you hope is for the right bus.

11- Misread the route information at the stop and start walking the other direction to see if you can identify the “correct” bus stop.
12- When you see what actually is your bus coming up the street, run back toward the original stop to see if you can catch it.
13- Try not to curse when you don't make it.  (You are going to the temple, after all.)
14- Sit at the bus stop in a disgruntled manner because getting to the temple is so hard.
15- Reminisce about the good old days when you lived just down the street from the temple in LA. 

16- Get on the next bus when it arrives, and take it to the stop a few blocks from the temple.
17- Take a shortcut through the nearby shopping center.
18-  Purchase some interesting/not entirely appetizing items from the Asian bakery because you don’t have the time to sit and enjoy a legitimate dinner (if you can call a meal at KFC “a legitimate dinner”) as you had originally planned.

19- Eat a couple bites of the worst excuse for a chocolate croissant you've ever laid taste buds on while you simultaneously dodge eight lanes of traffic to cross the street to the temple.

20- Make a mental note to never trust an Asian-owned bakery chain with your French pastries.
21- Hand the rest of the thing masquerading as a chocolate pastry to the hubs to finish off as you exchange your flip-flops for heels.

22- Walk calmly, coolly and collectedly into the temple as if coming to the temple is a breeze and you are in the perfect frame of mind for a session.
23- When you come out of the temple after your session, do another quick wardrobe change, this time switching your heels for flip-flops so you're appropriately outfitted for the journey back home.

24- Hope against all hope, as you’re leaving the temple grounds, that someone leaving in a car might notice that you are leaving on foot and think to stop and ask you if you need a ride somewhere.
25- When no one does, make a pact with the Hubs that someday when you have a car again, you will offer rides where possible. Especially to temple-goers.
26- Make the 15-minute walk down the hill to the Carlingford train station.
27- Buy a ridiculously overpriced Sprite to sip/inhale as you wait for the train.

28- When the train arrives, choose your seat carefully as it is the end of the day and the end of the line and the whole car smells of urine and there are unidentifiable substances smeared on all surfaces. 

29- Try not to curse humanity as you settle in for the ride.  (You did just come from the temple, after all.)
30- Share your mister’s headphones to watch an episode of the Office to take your mind off the condition of the train car and make the trip go faster.  Choose the one that was the hour-long special, 'cause you will be on trains that long.

31- Get off the train at Clyde to transfer to the red line to get you back to the city.

32- Fight the Friday night bar mob for 10 blocks back to Circular Quay.  You should probably try to hold your breath most of the way because the cigarette smoke is so thick.
33- Arrive at Circular Quay only to learn you've just missed the ferry.
34- Wait 30 minutes for the next one.
35- Drag your filthy, disheveled and beat-down self off the ferry and across the street to your apartment building.
36- Test your mister’s patience in the elevator as you take one final picture to document the journey.

37- Collapse on the sofa and swear to yourself you will never leave your apartment again.

See? Nothin' to it. The whole trip only takes about 8 hours. And I figure the Pioneers’ trip from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley was probably almost as hard. I mean, they didn’t have to figure out the stupid public transportation system. But still….