Stealing from Nuns?

Surely that sends one straight to the confessional, no?  I might as well fess up.  The cat (er, FLAG's) out of the bag anyway.  If you follow me on FB or Twitter, you know there was a little "theft", which I prefer to call "indefinite borrowing" that happened just prior to the LSU v A&M Cotton Bowl game.

Truthfully?  I'm throwing Sr. Thomas Aquinas under the bus.  I better type fast; I know she reads the blog :)

So, we're at carline - my absolute favorite time of day {insert sarcasm font here} - and the kids are waiting at the cone with STA.  Will hops in the car and says, "Mom, Sister says they have an LSU flag hanging outside their house!"  That did it.  If I had never known that little nugget, I would've NEVER been led to sin.  Gasp.  A sister, leading an innocent Aggie to sin.  Who woulda thunk it?

...

Hold on a sec.

Waiting for lightning to strike.

Anyhoodle, as we pulled out of carline, the wheels started clicking.  We drove by the Sisters' Convent with a quick glance and indeed, the monstrosity was hanging there, flailing in the wind.  I looked over at Will and said, "Buddy, you ready to steal a flag?"  His eyes got as big as silver dollars.  "MOM!"  I reassured him we would replace it with a much better model - our beloved maroon and white Aggie flag.  I'm pretty sure his response was one that entailed me not driving fast enough to get said flag.

A few minutes later, I had the entire car riled up chanting, "Aggies! Aggies!"  In a flash, Will grabbed the Aggie flag, hopped back in the van and we began cooking our plan.  We zoomed into their driveway, while I quickly checked the dashboard clock.  I knew we only had a few minutes.  The sisters arrive home between 4-4:15.  Will is practically peeing in his pants while I figure out how to get the flag to stay put.  In less than three minutes the *deed* has been done and we're back in the van, headed home.

Then...we waited.

Well, actually we waited, giggled and then I called Scott to tell him the news.  After he stopped laughing, we started making hypotheses about when we'd be fingered.  It took longer than we thought.  Later that evening, we got an email, I tweeted too soon.  Shoot, forgot that feed shows up on the blog.  We played dumb.  The next morning, Sr. Elizabeth Ann fires off a "return the flag or else" while holding our Aggie flag over the trashcan.  Silly sister.  Tricks are for kids.  There are way more flags where those came from.  I believe Scott's email reply was slightly more elegant than that.

Then, there was a phone call from a priest, wearing his confessional stole, asking if we wanted to "confess" anything.  Pa-shaw.  Will and I held our ground.  May I insert here, that I've never been more proud of my son's lying skills?  Yes, I may.  Finally, Thursday morning, just as Scott's leaving to take the kids to school, who do we spy but two sweet sisters knocking on our door.  As he drives off, I hear Scott say, "Sister, I sure hope they find out who's doing all the vandalism in the neighborhood."

I bite my tongue as I open the door.

They brought food.  Biscotti.  Homemade.  And our sweet A&M flag.  I promised them we would pass the food along to the vandals, you know, as a good will offering.

And that, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

NOTE:  I did use the word "nuns" with a loose literary license.  Technically, the Dominicans we tried to evangelize are sisters, because they live in community.  Nuns are cloistered.  But stealing from nuns just sounded better :)