Stress Be With You

Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broom-stick to a witch, or a wand to a conjuror. - Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

The quote derives from the scene where young Cedric must impersonate a friar but doesn't know how to behave like one. In Scott's medieval world, friars (journeyman monks) are known by their Latin responses. When faced with any question, a friar says, Pax vobiscum. In English, this means Peace be with you.

If Cedric had been trying to infiltrate the ranks of Wellesley Convent, he would have tweaked the response just a little. In order to really imitate a Sister, the response is Dolor tecum. Loosely translated, this means Stress be with you.

Sisters walk, run, bike and gallop across their beloved campus and once in a while they run into each other. This only happens when the studious Sisters raise their eyes from the ground -- the holy dirt of the Convent must be looked at more than any dirt on any other part of the Earth. The problem with stopping and talking with fellow Sisters is that everyone is so busy, so tired and so afraid of feeling inferior that human contact is unadvisable.

Still, once in a while, a bus carrying Oprah's Leadership School students gets in a Sister's way and she is forced to stand and talk with the other Sister from somewhere. There is a strict formula, thank God, to these interactions so no nun has to be creative.

Sister One: Hello!

Sister Two: Hi! How are you?

S1: Good, busy. I'm actually really tied up right now, which is why I haven't emailed you.

S2: God, I know. I haven't had a moment to breathe all day.

S1: My whole week's been like this. I keep on thinking it will get better but--

S2: It never does! I think I've been like this since the Convent recovened.

S1: You're so right. We should really get together sometime. I have a meeting with Mother Superior tomorrow, and then I'm interviewing Our Holy Father Obama on Thursday for the New York Times --

S2: Wow, that's so cool! I just finished my biography of Our Holy Father and my literary agent said that I'm going to crack the New York Times bestseller list! We have like the same activities!

S1: I need to go pray to Success now, so sorry. Send me a secret signal via First Class!

S2: Totally! Stress be with you!

S1: Stress be with you!

Having completed this formulaic but necessary exchange, each Sister walks off into the opposite direction feeling completely inferior about her own activities. She walks faster to get to her own altar to Success, thinks of five new ways she can improve her GPA, and gives no second glance to Oprah's Leadership School girls driving away in the distance.