Aging & Wisdom Quote by Erma Bombeck

Bombeck lands the joke with a wicked little twist: friendship as both intimacy and ambush. The line starts in the familiar key of casual catching-up - your friend “saw your old boyfriend” - then detonates with “and he’s a priest,” a reveal that instantly rewrites the past. It’s not just an update; it’s an unsolicited epilogue to your romantic history, delivered with the breezy tone friends use when they’re about to ruin your afternoon.

The intent is classic Bombeck: domestic comedy sharpened into social satire. She’s poking at how women’s friendships often operate as informal newsrooms, trading sightings and status changes like breaking stories, with the extra thrill of moral shock value. “Priest” isn’t random; it’s cultural shorthand for renunciation, purity, and a life rerouted. The subtext: whatever you thought you had with him, he’s now officially joined an institution that implies you were a chapter he closed hard. It’s funny because it’s disproportionate - the upgrade from “How’s he doing?” to “He’s taken vows” is absurd - but also because it touches a real insecurity: your past is still out there, evolving without your consent.

Context matters, too. Bombeck wrote from within middle-class American life where religion sat close to the everyday, and “becoming a priest” carried instant narrative gravity. The line compresses that gravity into a single punchline about how friends can be loving and lethal in the same sentence.