The Power of Christ Compels You to Behave Anti-Socially

I hate pilgrims.

Tomorrow begins the pilgrimage of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos, where thousands of people will walk hundreds of kilometers over ten days in honor of someone who did something a long, long time ago. Let's just come right out and say it: it's pretty stupid. I don't mean to single out Miss de los Lagos, because there are literally hundreds of these pilgrimages all over Mexico all year long, but because she's the one whose fireworks woke me up at before sunrise today, here's her story: Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos isn't even an actual lady - she's just an image of the Virgin Mary. In 1623, a girl got sick. Her parents prayed like crazy to the "lady." The daughter, obviously suffering from some temporary malady misdiagnosed as fatal by her 17th-Century, rural Mexican doctor, recovered. Three hundred and eighty four years later, there's a bunch of knuckleheads parading up and down my street lighting off fireworks at 6:00AM.

And singing. As they made their way up our darkened street, singing their maddeningly catchy, repetitive tune and shooting off a quarter-stick of dynamite every 100 feet or so, I was able to make out snatches of the lyrics, to the effect of "Wake up! Set your alarms! [Something something] It will be 6:00AM! [Something something] walking..."

Yes, the whole thing - the church bells, the marching, the singing, the explosions - was just a reminder that, hey, the pilgrimage starts tomorrow, so don't plan on sleeping in.