It's JW Season...
...no bag limit! Oh shit, just kidding!
The Watchtower Crew was just here. It was a couple of sweet little old white-haired grannies, the kind of people who usually canvass for cancer donations, so I grabbed my wallet and opened the door. They greeted me, smiling pleasantly, and said "We're just in the neighbourhood..." Then I saw the bundles of tracts they were holding, "Awake" and "The Watchtower". I politely declined their offer of reading material and a discussion of my theological status: "No thanks, I'm an atheist".
Shock: "You don't believe in god?" (she says, like it's a bad thing.) "Nope."
"You're not even interested?" "Nah, but thanks anyway."
Closing the door, I watched the two little grannies scurry down the steps of my deck like they expected the whole building to go up in flames any second. (Get thee behind me, satan!) I felt kind of bad, because a Closer Of Doors On Little Old Ladies is not really who I am. But I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to engage these people.
Once I had four (4!) of them, all people my age, show up and their entry strategy was to say "We want to tell you about some great news" or something like that. I'm always into hearing great news, so I stepped out of the house and -- caught! Once I realized what was going on, I made the mistake of trying to reason with them, telling them that I considered myself to be a very spiritual person, just not in a religious sense. This is probably the worst thing I could have done, because it showed that although I was a heathen, I had the potential to be "saved". The four of them piled on in sort of a theological gang bang that spiraled out of control and lasted the better part of an hour. In those days, I was just too polite to tell them to take a hike. (The only thing that saved me was the arrival of 3 of my friends on their harleys. I henceforth referred to them as the Three Iron-Horsemen of the Apocalypse.)
Since then, I've had no problem telling door-to-door evangelizers to hit the road. But it's not so easy when they're little sweet grannies. It's an insidious strategy, playing on the guilt of the hapless homeowners who answer the door expecting to donate to cancer research. I just hope it doesn't make people refuse to answer their doors when the real cancer canvassers show up.
The Watchtower Crew was just here. It was a couple of sweet little old white-haired grannies, the kind of people who usually canvass for cancer donations, so I grabbed my wallet and opened the door. They greeted me, smiling pleasantly, and said "We're just in the neighbourhood..." Then I saw the bundles of tracts they were holding, "Awake" and "The Watchtower". I politely declined their offer of reading material and a discussion of my theological status: "No thanks, I'm an atheist".
Shock: "You don't believe in god?" (she says, like it's a bad thing.) "Nope."
"You're not even interested?" "Nah, but thanks anyway."
Closing the door, I watched the two little grannies scurry down the steps of my deck like they expected the whole building to go up in flames any second. (Get thee behind me, satan!) I felt kind of bad, because a Closer Of Doors On Little Old Ladies is not really who I am. But I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to engage these people.
Once I had four (4!) of them, all people my age, show up and their entry strategy was to say "We want to tell you about some great news" or something like that. I'm always into hearing great news, so I stepped out of the house and -- caught! Once I realized what was going on, I made the mistake of trying to reason with them, telling them that I considered myself to be a very spiritual person, just not in a religious sense. This is probably the worst thing I could have done, because it showed that although I was a heathen, I had the potential to be "saved". The four of them piled on in sort of a theological gang bang that spiraled out of control and lasted the better part of an hour. In those days, I was just too polite to tell them to take a hike. (The only thing that saved me was the arrival of 3 of my friends on their harleys. I henceforth referred to them as the Three Iron-Horsemen of the Apocalypse.)
Since then, I've had no problem telling door-to-door evangelizers to hit the road. But it's not so easy when they're little sweet grannies. It's an insidious strategy, playing on the guilt of the hapless homeowners who answer the door expecting to donate to cancer research. I just hope it doesn't make people refuse to answer their doors when the real cancer canvassers show up.
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