Sit down around the fire kids and I'll tell you a tale of the day I met one of the greatest artists in pop history.

Abe was skipping slightly ahead of Dee and I as we walked through Gateway, he was three and adorable. As he skipped he ran into a man dressed in head to toe black with several necklaces hanging from around his neck, one of them was a large crucifix. The man kind of skipped around Abe and laughed good naturedly as Dee and I smiled good naturedly in return. We passed the man and walked about ten more feet before we turned to each other we said simultaneously;

"Was that Bono???"

We walked a little further, trying to be cool, and when that didn't work we turned back around to try to find him again. We were obviously looking for him when a manager approached us and told us that if we stayed where we were he would bring Bono out to see us for autographs and pictures. This was the one time I have ever regretted not having a cell phone.

I turned to Dee and realize that my 16 year old sister, the one whose existence had been reminding me that I was old, uncool and pregnant, had gone Japanese school girl crazy.

I have never felt so hip to a scene in my life as when I got to say "Be cool, Dee."

With three words I had become an expert and was now giving instruction.

Bono patted my belly. We asked him what on Earth he was doing in a Salt Lake City? He joked that he was looking into Mormonism. Some people may feel differently but I love Mormon jokes, and while it wasn't really a joke joke I appreciated that his banter was witty and topical. Hahahaha, oh Bono we said.

Then he surprised me. I guess he wanted to take the ball and run with it.

"Yeah, I guess I want to worship goats, or something."

Hehe..he....ehh. yeah, that's not great. You can keep that autograph.

This is the white, Catholic Irishman who wrote the most moving tribute ever made to the life of Martin Luther King Jr. This is the man who does wonderful work for AIDS, for Africa, for peace in the world. This is a man who sang a revolution of peace for Ireland. He is a great artist and a great man.

So I could not believe that I heard someone like that throw out such an ignorant statement as a joke. Clearly the point was to illustrate that he knew nothing of Mormonism, but also that the little he did know was that we are crazy. Obviously he was also not aware of how prevalent Mormons are in freakin' Salt Lake City, or I would imagine he would have leaned a bit more on the respectful side.

I was a little disillusioned by that little interchange, but lately I've been thinking about all the less than great stuff that comes out of my mouth without thinking.

So do I still think Bono is a genius and a great man? Absolutely.

I've decided that the whole experience just further illustrated to me that we all have our prejudices. We all have people, or religions, or scenarios that we think we can peg without looking too closely, and we can't. You can be freakin' Bono and still have moments where you are maybe a little bit insensitive. And somehow that make me feel a little bit better. It makes me feel like we are all just trying, and we can try to be sensitive to others who are different from us and we can also try to be understanding when someone falls a little short of expectation.

So I guess I'm still with Bono, just one more in the name of love.