It's amazing how much "stuff" piles up when you go away from the church for six days. The biggest thing I have to deal with today is the fallout from the photo directory.

If I thought, gentle readers, that my trauma over being photographed was going to be the zenith of my problem, I was either sadly mistaken or hopelessly naive. You be the judge.

We used a famous, nationally known company that has been doing church directories for many years. Let's call them "Omer Magee". (They don't need any free publicity.) Most of my dealings with this company have been very above board. I understand how the process works: every family gets a free directory and a "complimentary" 8X10 portrait of their choosing. OM makes money off of the packages sold to church members. It's a business; I get that.

BUT (and you knew there had to be a "but") the day after my photograph, I was comparing notes with the Office Administrator here at St. Stoic, and we noticed certain "add-ons" to our orders. Mine resulted in being overcharged about $35, and hers resulted in an overcharge of about $55. Not chump change to people who work for the church, especially her. She is paid less than half what I am, and she runs this place!

A quick call to customer service took care of the overcharges, but then we got to wondering...if the guy did this to us, chances are he did this to everybody else! So I went back to church the next night to talk to him about it, making it very clear where I think he made the mistake that resulted in my spending 30 minutes on hold with corporate, and in his getting two complaints registered against him. I let him know in no uncertain terms that it would be unacceptable for him to pull this kind of monkey business with any more members of the congregation. (I think I used the words "These are *my* people, and *I* am looking out for them." Words I wouldn't use very often, but I was pulling out the "pastor card" on this goober.)

So, once people found out, the calls started pouring in. So far he misrepresented the cost/upgrades of packages to about 30% of the membership. That's a lot of customer service complaints!

I think he screwed with the wrong "lady preacher".