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… “Ben”—and especially during the holidays.
    Now don’t get any bright ideas at an autograph signing and bring me a Cabbage Patch doll named Ben. JoJo and I would have to do to you what we did to the bunny.
    Just kidding.

6
Jenny’s First Fall from Grace
    I was about nine years old when my mom showed me a picture of Satan in a religious book. It was the first time I had a visual of what this infamous demon that everyone seemed to be frightened of looked like.
    He was green with horns and looked quite comfortable standing in a fire pit that seemed to melt the skin of only the evildoers around him. I trembled at the sight of him. I was surprised that he didn’t match the red-horned man I saw on Halloween. When I inquired how Satan came to be, my mom explained that he was a fallen angel.
    I visualized this angel accidentally slipping on a stair in Heaven and falling miles to Hell. Because I wasn’t taught in detail about his fall from grace, I spent the next few years terrified of stairs. I would hold on for dear life thinking that if I fell, I too would become “a Satan.”
    What Catholicism—or any religion for that matter—doesn’t realize is that children’s minds will go to great lengths to try to understand what they are being taught, even when taught poorly. Since most of the Bible is metaphorical, it should be taught as such. There were just too many questions unanswered and it seemed as though there was nobody willing to listen.
    Don’t get me wrong. I loved being a part of the Church. I loved how it gave a real sense of community and belonging. I have fond memories of attending our church bazaars and bake sales to help raise money for poor families like my own that were struggling to make ends meet.
    Even though we were one of the poorest families at our church, my mother refused to accept handouts. She was simply too proud. We barely scraped by at times, but my mom wouldn’t allow us to admit defeat. This caused a lot of frustration for me growing up, but it also made me admire my parents’ strong work ethic and determination to persevere despite any obstacle thrown our way.
    My sister JoJo and I were very close growing up, mainly because we both shared a fear of Satan and would not leave each other’s side in the off chance that he would try to steal our souls. We had each other’s backs so much so that she never slept a day in her own room. I had a twin bed, and after my parents went to sleep, she would crawl into it. Then we would pull out our Mother Mary statue, St. Joseph statue, Jesus statue, and four rosaries and make them into a wall around our bodies to protect us from any looming demons. Our nightly talk was about what we would do if Satan walked into the room. We had plans. Big ones. I would throw my Jesus statue at Satan and JoJo would drown him in holy water that we stole from the church in hopes of melting him like the witch in The Wizard of Oz .
    This behavior could largely be the reason why JoJo and I were both bed wetters until we were ten years old. Every night, without fail, JoJo and I woke up in pee. Because we both knew we wet the bed, we stopped blaming each other.
    It finally got to the point that my mother said that if either of us peed anymore, she would put us in diapers. The thought of that was traumatizing. We had to come up with yet another master plan; this time to cover our bladder handicap from our mom.
    Come two A.M. , one of us would usually wake up soaked and then shake the other one to get up. Then JoJo and I would tiptoe from our bedroom down into the basement to wash and dry the sheets and bring them back up.
    The problem was that the basement is where the devil hangs out. So JoJo and I would strip the sheets off the bed and then put all of our rosaries around our necks until we looked like Mr. T or, for all you youngsters out there, Flavor Flav.
    Once we were heavily weighed down with prayer beads, we would slowly open the basement door. There was always a