St. Peter heard a knock. He ignored it and tried to go back to sleep.
Someone cleared his throat. "Um… excuse me…"
St. Peter opened one eye. There was some… thing out beyond the gate. He sat up on a cloud and sighed. It was probably just a cherub that got stuck outside the wall. St. Peter dug the gate key out of his pocket. "Alright, I'm coming already!"
Peter opened the pearly gate and didn't know what to think. It wasn't a cherub or any kind of divine creature waiting outside. It was a man, a normal human man carrying an umbrella.
"What… what the devil do you want? And what are you doing here?" St. Peter demanded. "Get back to Earth right this minute!"
Larry tucked the umbrella under his arm. "I'm Larry and I'm dead, I think… is this heaven?"
St. Peter snapped: "No, it's a Wal-Mart! Of course, it's heaven! Don't you know anything? And you can't be dead or you wouldn't be here to begin with!"
"I'm pretty sure I'm dead."
St. Peter roughly grabbed Larry's wrist and checked for a pulse. "Well… damn."
"So, can I get into Heaven now?"
"No, I'm sure you don't meet the requirements!"
"But I've tried to be a good person," Larry protested. "Really, I have!"
"We'll see about that," St. Peter retrieved the Golden Scroll of Larry's Earthly Deeds. "Hmm… must be something in here…"
"Aha!" St. Peter exclaimed. "On April, 5th 2001, you touched a pig!"
"Wait, that was just a guinea pig!"
"Oh… well then, let's see… you didn't eat shrimp or shellfish?"
Larry shook his head.
"How about wearing clothes of two different fibers?" St. Peter scanned the scroll. "You gotta be kidding me! You never had wool blend anything?"
Larry shrugged.
"Ever worship Baal?"
"No."
"Make a graven image?"
"Nope."
"Ever curse your parents or disobey them?"
Larry cringed. "I… I guess I did that... at some point… but I didn't mean it…"
"Goodbye Larry." St. Peter pointed a finger to banish him. Nothing happened. He tried it again. "Hmm… it's not working…"
"Well, the thing is; they weren't my real parents, exactly. I was adopted."
"Great," St. Peter swore. "Then it doesn't even count!"
The saint refocused on scrutinizing Larry's life; cross-referencing it with the extensive file of sins, blasphemies, and abominations listed in the scriptures. Peter checked Larry's scroll three times over before finally relenting.
St. Peter bitterly unlatched the gate. "Welcome to Heaven, Larry."
Larry dropped his umbrella and ran inside. He stopped on a golden street and looked in all directions. "Wait, where's everybody at?"
St. Peter stooped to pick up Larry's umbrella. "You're the first."