Recently during the opening exercises of Priesthood Meeting, I was sitting quietly by myself with several books open on my lap, trying to get some studying and planning in while the meeting gradually got started. Things were going just fine until someone from behind walked over to me and handed me a clipboard with a sign-up sheet of some kind. I think this was a sheet of people ready to commit to offering rides for people wishing to attend a distant Stake Temple Day. My memory is fading – maybe this was the sign-up sheet for those who had chain saws that they could bring to a service project at a local park. No, I think this was the sheet for volunteers with pressure washers and industrial cleaning equipment willing to clean-up after a Primary food fight planned in the Stake Center. In any case, I groaned silently. I had just been infected with the Clipboard Virus. Third time in three weeks!

It’s such a difficult virus to stamp out, for each new infected soul becomes possessed with incredible feelings of guilt if they don’t immediately act to spread the virus to someone else. Even knowing that this was a virus, there was little I could do. I stared at the sign-up sheet blankly for a few seconds, felt the weight of the Clipboard upon trembling knees, and then, feeling that the welfare of the entire ward, perhaps the entire stake, depended on my making sure that the Clipboard was handed to some other uninfected soul, I put all my books down, closed my note pad, set down my pen, moved my stuff out of my way, stood up, and walked like a cursed zombie up the aisle to find someone who had not yet joined the ranks of the Clipboard Carriers. “Here you go. Have you seen this yet?” He looked blankly at it, knowing immediately that it had nothing to do with him and that he had no interest in anything on the Clipboard. But moments later another zombie would stand and seek out an uninfected victim, also feeling distracted and irritated.

Please don’t let the anti-Mormon street preacher crowd know about the genetic vulnerability Mormons have to the Clipboard virus. If only they knew its power, they would recognize that yelling into bullhorns and waving underwear in people’s faces on their way to General Conference or other LDS events is a completely lame and ineffective way to disrupt Mormon worship. They could do much more harm by simply slipping into one of our meetings and handing someone in the back row a Clipboard. “This is the sign-up sheet for volunteers for the Stake crop-circle activity next month. You know, the one to make a giant Angel Moroni in some beet fields. Pass it on.”