Right in the goddamned heart. My mom passed away last week, and we just got back into town last night.
Lo and behold, what’s in the mailbox? A letter from my hometown. From a PO box. From somebody I’ve never met named Danielle. From somebody who shouldn’t know my address. Fuck you in the spleen, Danielle.
“I saw your mother listed in the obituaries. Here’s a two-page handwritten screed about our bullshit religion. See also the enclosed pamphlets. Sorry about your mom.”
My condolences about your mom. It’s a tough thing to go through.
As for the JWs, they’re apparently as heartless and inconsiderate as they are stupid. They’re fortunate I’ve never encountered them at my front door because I’m getting to the age where “being polite” is very low in my list of priorities.
That happened to me after my mother died. Long handwritten letter, but I don’t think JW. One of my great regrets in life was that I didn’t have the time/money under the circumstances to go to the local bookstores and gather subscription cards from every type of rancid porn mag I could find and fill them out in her name, plus order (at my expense) some of those large porn-sample VHS bundles that the sold in the backs of magazines back then so that the old cunt would have been at the top of porn mailing lists for the rest of her life.
Very sorry to hear about your mother. My condolences. I can understand checking the obituaries to find an apartment in Manhattan, checking the obituaries to try to suck grieving people into a cult is heinous.
Sorry to hear about your mom.
The JW’s come by my house a few times a year. This time I said “I’m not interested” She asked “Not interested in learning from the Bible?” I said “Just not interested in general…”
It worked like a charm, though it probably helped that I looked like a grumpy hobo since I just got back from a camping trip where I slept no more than 2 hours and hadn’t showered or shaved, or changed clothes.
We were far from the US when we got the email that my mother had died a few days before. If JW’s sent a letter, it never reached our post office box.
JW’s and all other religious proselytizers and believers have a problem: their deity is statistically most unlikely to be a valid god, given the myriads that humans invented. Kali is displeased. Loki is grumpy. Coyote farts nastily.
Every set of JWs at your door are JWs not yet devoured by Cthulhu. Give them cupcakes.
I’m confused. Did MaCarlisle live out of town or was she just buried there? Was there an obit in your local paper? Are you the only GreysonCarlisle in your town? I get that Danielle could look up an address, but how did she know to look up your address?
I want to learn all about Satan worship just for when they come to the door I can invite them & & try to convert them.
“Not interested”? Man, I need to give you some lessons! The more appropriate expression of lack of interest for these JW assholes is “Get the fuck off my property – NOW!” while looking vaguely threatening and imbalanced. If it suits your fancy, a nice variant on that would be to abruptly switch moods, and with a wide-eyed glassy stare and broad smile, scream “Wait! I think maybe you should come in. Me and my brother would love to hear what you have to say. My brother, he ain’t right in the head. Maybe Jehovah can save him.” Then stepping out on the porch and grabbing at them. It helps in these circumstances to have a thin stream of drool emanating from one corner of the mouth. This is the kind of performance art that can keep JWs away for years.
Never had a chance to use the “Get the fuck off my property” line with JWs, though. Did use it once with a fake “government energy inspector” who needed to check out my gas furnace and water heater and was authorized to save me big bucks. He scuttled off in a hurry. I was just sorry I didn’t call the police to have him arrested, but I wasn’t sure there were sufficient grounds. These slimeballs operate in a gray area of deception that is not always technically criminal.
I saw them coming up the walk, so I opened the door with a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew in my hand and said “Could we talk in the bathroom? I’m in the middle of Sissy’s enema”.
Apparently that was a no go.
And what happened to the OP was every bit as terrible as what happened to a woman I worked with in the 1980s who had a baby, and got letters from FOUR (!) different pro-life organizations wanting to thank her for choosing life for her baby - a baby she and her husband had tried to have for 5 years! :mad:
It’s offensive as all hell, but I wouldn’t characterize the pro-life thing as “every bit as terrible” as the OP’s story. Mainly because it’s a happy occasion. For instance, intrusions like “gift packages” from vendors of baby products to try to get you hooked on their products (my wife got a bunch of those) are just part of the happy scene. I regarded it as, hey, look, free stuff! Intrusions like the “pro-life” propaganda are highly political and much more offensive, like, “congrats on your young son/daughter, glad you didn’t murder the little tyke”. Yes, it’s pretty bad, and the fuckers sending this sort of shit should be prosecuted.
But intruding in a time of grief to explicitly promote your blithering superstitious nonsense is much beyond the pale and far worse than any of the preceding, in my opinion. It’s even worse than those fuckers who sell baby products who get their wires crossed and send those wonderful gift packages to women who have lost their babies. It’s happened often enough to get reported as a problem. But at least it’s unintentional.
I have a special hate for religious vultures who regard the death of someone’s friend or loved one as an opportunity for an advertisement. Some years ago, I attended the funeral of a friend who had been murdered. The preacher knew that some of her friends who were in attendance weren’t Christian, and decided that the middle of her eulogy would be a great time to insult their beliefs and declare that they needed to convert to his church to find comfort. It still pisses me off every time I think about it.
I don’t believe we’ve ever even exchanged words before, GreysonCarlisle, but I’m sorry for your loss and furious on your behalf at the scum trying to take advantage of a grieving family.
I’ll do you one better. Anytime I see someone approching my door and they make eye contact with me through a window I’ll just yell “Nope” or “Not interested” through the window and keep walking. The majority of the time they actually do turn around and keep walking. If they catch me outside I’ll normally cut them off and nicely, but sternly say “I’m not interested” and walk away.
Now, this is for salespeople, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with JW or LDS (which we get more of around here).
Honestly, I think most of these people, getting cut off in the middle of their first sentence or being yelled at through a window, are caught off guard and that’s what gives me the opportunity to walk away. I’m usually halfway back to my house before they say ‘but can’t I tell you…’. No, you can’t.
The way I see it, you’re banging on my door in hopes that I’ll give you money. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t owe you money, I don’t owe you my time and I don’t owe you any courtesy.
(NB: This is a direct link to one instance of Master Wang-Ka’s classic post. He posted it several times, but this is the first I found.)
GreysonCarlisle, my condolences on your loss, and I share your rage at the shear effrontery and lack of compassion the JWs are displaying towards your family.
I read something the other day that was sort of a mindfuck–someone suggested that the reasons JW and LDS are sent around to prostyletze is NOT out of any hope of converting anyone, but to solidify a “us vs them” mentality–it reinforces the idea that they can’t possibly ever integrate into mainstream society because mainstream society is fucking scary and hates them. Plus, on a deep level, spending hours and days as the embodiment of a religion really puts the seal on the brainwashing. This is why they are always in pairs and groups.
I am not trying to make excuses for the letter writer–it’s appalling that anyone did that. But it’s not a matter of one evil person. It’s a cult.
For the door-to-door thumpers, especially the “Can I just share a reading from the Bible with you?” ones, I’m trying out a new trolling tactic: quoting Matthew 6:5 at them. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
I’ve used it a couple of times now, but so far, the targets have only looked confused, rather than insulted. (Which doesn’t speak well of their comprehension of biblical verses, but that’s hardly surprising.)
Looking at the history of my old family church, it once had a pastor by the name of RL Hamby, the same name/initials as my great-grandfather. I knew that he had had a variety of jobs, but hadn’t heard of pastoring. Luckily there was still one of his children alive at the time. She told me that no, it wasn’t him, that that pastor was already gone by the time my family joined (early 1940s) and was widely hated by the congretion. She said that once at a funeral he preached that the guest of honor was a sinner and was now burning in Hell, and after the funeral one of the relatives kicked the preacher down the steps of the church.