These aren't sacred undergarments, they're Spanx! Really

My husband in his sacred undergarments on the set of Law & Order: SVU.
(Just kidding: that's an old undershirt!)

There are these people in my building who I am convinced don't like us because they think we are Mormon.

This would sound totally absurd to anyone who knows me, but if you are a white lady pushing a stroller down the street in our corner of a not-very-diverse NYC neighborhood made up mostly of Dominicans, chances are you're a Latter Day Saint. Oh, and my kid is blond. Damn, are we Mormon?

Anyway, it really gets me because these people who don't like us seem cool and smart and totally like people we would usually get along with. It's not like they're rude, but when I say hi to this woman, she says hi back and then always looks just a little disgusted with herself.

But short of inviting this couple to a coffee-fueled orgy at our place I can't really think of a good way to convince them otherwise. Also, I never see them in the laundry room, which is too bad because then they would see that I'm NOT washing load after load of temple garments. (Also of interest: apparently attending temple is a little like a P. Diddy party; everyone wears white on white! It's a little creepy though. The online stores that sell Mormon temple duds have names like White Elegance and Dressed in White. But just try to find some Mormon undergarments online. I've been searching for 20 minutes and I can't find any)

Anyway, I told my husband that I thought these hip neighbors didn't like us because they think we're Mormons, and he said: "No way, we're not good-looking enough." And he's right! We walk by their church on Sunday morning on the way to brunch or the playground or whatever, and it looks like a casting call for The Bachelor. Everyone going into that place is at least a 7. In fact, my husband said, he would be super flattered if someone thought he was a Mormon. It would be a compliment, he reasoned, because they're so hot (and not in the literal my-sacred-undergarments-are-giving-me-hot-flashes kind of way).

AND THEN: Last week a friend of a friend mistook my husband for a Mormon. The reasons being geography (our apartment's proximity to the church), whiteness and the fact my husband refers to himself as an "elder." OK, joking about that last one.

My husband was pretty horrified, having grown up in an equally evangelical church where speaking in tongues was totally the norm but the Mormon church was seen as a cult. What can I say? He's from the midwest. I'm Canadian. We're wholesome looking. Oh, and I love to sew and shit, and I blog about it, which apparently Mormon housewives do too, as explained in this Salon.com column on one feminist's obsession with crafty Mormon moms' design blogs. (Thanks to my friend Danielle for pointing that out).

OK, to recap: blond kid, a husband who wears white undershirts every day (see photo), and I wish my blog were as cute and popular as the Mormon moms' blogs. We may as well convert. And the first people I am inviting to our sneaky Sunday post-church meet-and-greet are the artists upstairs.