I can feel that twitch. You know what I mean. That quiver in the back of your brain that says, distract me. I must be in Sunday School.

Now before you comment on my ‘knocking around’ the hour so many people love about church, let me defend with this: my current Sunday School teachers are amazing. Some of the best I’ve ever had. My urge to be entertained is my own fault. I’m cursed with forever remembering the kids in sacrament meeting who were allowed to bring toys, while I had to find new ways to entertain myself…with a tie.

But I digress! Back to the twitch…

As discussed in my previous blog (Will There Be iPads In Hell?), I’ve stopped using my iPad for entertainment during church and instead focus on using it merely for scripture study. But it was calling me to the dark side, and just when I could bear no more, the teacher asks us to look up a scripture. YES! I get to touch it! Opening my bag, which has remained faithfully closed since the night before, I remove the thin piece of glorious hardware and stop.

There’s a smell.

The unmistakable aroma of a drink forbidden to Mormons, was leaking from my bag. Even the fuzzy inside of my iPad flap had absorbed the robust scent.

Coffee.

I’m sweating. I believe the words lamb and slaughter were the only lesson terms that stuck out as the scent began to fill every surrounding nostril. As for the smell itself, black roast with a hint of vanilla, I’m not complaining. You see, I love the smell of coffee.

The scent comes from my nightly sojourns to the nearest Starbucks where I write my books, articles, and *gasp* this blog.

So what’s a Mormon doing in a coffee shop? Glad you asked. The hopeless romantic in me loves the atmosphere (dim lights, cheesy make-out music, intimate seating), the writer in me loves the energy (people in black turtle necks snapping their fingers …eh, maybe not so much), and then there’s the lovely smell of course. But don’t worry, I’m the opposite of a certain president who admitted putting a joint in his mouth but didn’t inhale. When it comes to coffee, I’m all about inhaling but not putting it into my mouth.

Regardless of the reasons, my bag is still leaking the scent of last nights writing session into the Sunday School room. What do I do? What are they going to do?

Now it’s an unwritten law that you don’t openly comment about foreign smells at church, and it’s this precise law that saves me. I know they can smell it, I know what they’re thinking, but no one says a word as I open my iPad and, struggling with a straight face, read from D&C section 89.

And the consequence of this little episode?

I’ve finally met my home teachers.

~John