There are times when shouting to the sky seems an excellent plan of action.

I've done that on a near-hourly basis this week, after starting a job requiring basic math skills, the ability to remember more than one login and password, and an aptitude for not stapling oneself.

I mean, for crying out loud, I'm not Hercules.

Unfortunately for me -- and everyone within earshot -- crying out to the heavens means yelling at the ceiling tiles. And I can say for certain now the ceiling tiles don't give a crap if I forgot to put a coversheet on my TPS report.

I'm pretty sure God doesn't care, either, but I heard He helps those who help themselves, so I've ganked a calculator from the office supply closet, taped the login and password codes to the monitor and successfully refrained from fixing skirt hems with a stapler while still wearing said skirt.

But I wanted some divine intervention also, a sort of cosmic alley-oop wherein I get the calculator from the supply closet and then God does the math. But we both know He has bigger fish to fry -- er, multiply.

Still, I didn't lose hope.

You may have heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If not, you're welcome.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is worshipped by a group of people called the Pastafarians. They celebrate Ramendan, Pastover, some amorphous thing called "Holiday" and every Friday for no apparent reason outside of the fact that it's Friday.

I can totally get on board with that.

The FSM creation story -- that the Earth was created in its slightly jacked-up state by a terrifically hung-over yet still magical wad of spaghetti and meatballs -- was thought up by physics nerd, Bobby Henderson. Outraged over the 2005 Kansas State Board of Education's decision to give equal time in science classes to both evolution and intelligent design (a fancy way of saying, "God did it,") Henderson made up his own "scientifically backed" creation theory and insisted it be taught alongside evolution and intelligent design.

Henderson went wild with his little story, creating a heaven (beer volcano, stripper factory) and hell (flat beer, strippers with STDs), and insisting that scientific "evidence" for evolution was merely put there by the FSM's "noodley appendage."

Henderson's satirical Church of the FSM became super popular, firing up debates over religion, the difference between theory and fact, and whether George W. Bush was giving Pastafarians a shout out when he wished folks a happy holiday instead of a merry Christmas.

This is all fine and good, but doesn't help with the scary new job.

I asked myself, "What would Flying Spaghetti Monster do?" Soon, I had answers.

In The Gospel of the FSM, a chart appears denoting the suspicious congruency between the decline in the pirate population and the incline in global warming. That's math.

But the "prophet" Henderson made the chart. FSM doesn't do math; he makes someone else do it. So I'll give my calculator to a prophet and my troubles will be over.

Logins and passwords? They're about keeping people out; they're about rejection and exclusion. FSM would say GFY to passwords and logins. So I'm going to tell the IT department that passwords are against my religion.

And the stapling problem? His Al Denteness would probably just stick things together using sauce and chunks of spicy, ground beef. That'll keep the coversheets on my TPS reports AND those hems in shape.

Can I get a R'amen?

Jeanine Fritz writes about theology and pasta each Friday in the Colorado Daily.