This morning as I stood in the cold, listening to the Dandy Warhols and waiting for the 7:34 bus, a silver Volvo pulled up to the curb next to me and a woman got out. She walked up to me and asked if I would like something to read while I waited.
"I don't know if you're a Bible reader," she said, "but this can help you."
I took the magazine she offered and said an uncertain "I don't want to be rude, but please don't talk to me any more or I'll likely say something we will both wish I hadn't" sort of thank you. She returned to her car and drove away.
So on the list of the things that I learned today, this one is written in big bold letters: the Jehovah's Witnesses have a new strategy. They're doing random drive-by proselytizing now.
After she left, I stood there wondering if my pre-first-cup-of-coffee facial expression betrayed the startled horror I felt at this exchange. You see, there were other people standing there at the bus stop with me. They, too, had headphones on, were obviously sleepy students, carrying backpacks and seeming no more or less outwardly heathenish than I. But this woman looked at me the way a polar bear looks at a barrel of mackerel. And now I'm left to wonder at the raw untapped power of my apparent agnostic magnetism.
It's as if I've discovered a superpower that I never knew existed -- I'm a member of some sort of lost theological branch of the X-men, able to leap entire dogmas in a single bound.
Look, there at the bus stop! It's a Buddhist! It's a Catholic! No, it's HeathenGirl!
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4 comments:
My wife was accosted by Jehovah's Witnesses at work one day. She used to be in a day-careish after school program at the YMCA. Anyway, these two kids sat around a table preaching at everyone as they colored. These kids were telling all the kids, and my wife, that they were going to hell and demanded they all repent immediately. I don't think I've ever been so upset at her employer as when they refused to do anything about it. Excessive proselytizing should be considered assault.
I know the feeling. They occasionally come to my apartment and I always want to invite them in. I know you're not suppose to do that, but I think inviting them in my apartment would make them never want to come back.
Unfortunately, once they see that I don't speak Spanish they just grin excessively and hand me their newsletter.
It's true, Mindy, you do tend to have that non-believer glint in your eyes. I'd peg you as a follower of Whitman or Wotan before the Christian deity.
Living in Japan, I was surprised at the sort of presence that Jehovah's Witnesses have set up there, especially as Japan has a Christian population of around 1%. I let them in for tea one time and, like Jared says, they never came back. Of course, that could be because I was a big tall gaijin. Anyways, my family has some negative history with these folks in Japan. The wife of my great-uncle Shuuichi converted a few years back, and it's turned her into a crazy mess. Her believe system persuaded her (and her weak-willed husband) to put my 100 year old great-grandmother into a nursing home instead of taking her in. Her reasoning: she didn't want to live with a heathen Shintoist and her little pint-sized shrines. It's a shame that really calls into question the compassion of the faith.
Good post - maybe next time you'll be hit up by Mormons, who tend to be better looking than Jehovah's Witnesses.
Oh, don't worry, the neighborhood Mormons have spotted me, too. I think the exchange went something like this:
Reasonably attractive young white-shirted man: "Have you ever talked with missionaries before?"
Me: (Remembering the fact that you can see the spire of the Stake Center out my childhood bedroom window, my brother's many years in Mormon Scout troops, and my college's infamous mascot) "Uhhh ... you could say that."
Maybe I should print up a bunch of copies of "Song of Myself" and "Howl" and selected Rumi, and just offer them literature for literature. I'll show you mine if you show me yours ...
(A side note: apparently everyone has one of these stories, and most of them are great/strange/interesting, as seen in the comments above. This is what we should be asking people about at parties. Much more interesting than "where are you from?")
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