I have had it with door to door religious proselytizers.
Booby trapped incinerator doormat, pongee stick traps under the walkway, buy a pit bull to sic on them had it with them. If these were the type of Christians that got fed to the lions, all I can say is that it’s a pity that this form of entertainment went kaput after the fall of Rome, and I can certainly sympathize with those who sent them there. They actually piss me off more than telemarketers, and given how frequently telemarketers wake me up during the day, that’s saying something.
Lest my ire here be misunderstood, I have nothing against ANY religion, Christianity included. I respect the right of others to choose a spiritual path that means something to them. If that means someone’s happiest worshipping in the Cult of the Jet Engine Killed Geese, I couldn’t give a reamed-raw dead rat’s asshole – so long as I don’t have to hear, witness, attest to, read or otherwise be forcibly informed about how wonderfully enlightening it is. Freedom of religion is a right I respect for others; all I ask is to have my own decision to not participate in organized religion be respected in turn.
There’s other reasons why I find this door to door Jesus selling to be utterly offensive, though. First, I was taught that there were some subjects that one simply didn’t discuss with someone unless the person was a close friend, and you could be fairly certain of being able to discuss the subject without giving offense. Religion was A-#1 on the old hit parade of subjects. And finally, religion is an intensely private thing to me. I don’t care to explain nor should I have to discuss my religious beliefs if I don’t choose to do so. It’s no one else’s business what I believe or how. Life is not an encounter group, and I don’t have to share anything about myself with anyone if I don’t wish to do so. I’d rather have a flasher at my door than a religious zealot; I’d be considerably more amused and less offended.
Enter the horde who apparently thinks that peddling their religion door to door like a life insurance policy is not only acceptable, but their divine right. Before I moved to Texas, (home of too many Bibles and too many bovinely stupid religious bigots with brains riddled with the Conservative Christian equivalent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), I rarely encountered such individuals. Now, they’re more prevalent than the riding-horse sized cockroaches (which are yet another wonderful tourist attraction of this rancid cesspool of a state).
The initial rounds of invitations to prayer groups and churches that I got when I first moved here were easy enough to decline. For a couple of years, my husband and I were left blissfully alone. However, in the past year, three things have changed: I began working nights at my firm, my husband’s children moved in with us, and three new neighbors moved in. All three go to different Christian Protestant churches. All have children who socialize with my husband’s. And allllllll of them are apparently convinced that because of our religious tolerance, my husband and I are eternally damned and taking the kids with us (unless of course, we attend their church and give a proper tithe of our income to it.)
In the past three months, there has not been a single week that one of them has not been dinning at our door (usually early Sunday morning when I have been asleep for a whole hour) asking if ‘the dear children’ can come to church with them, if we don’t care to go ourselves. We consistently decline. [The kids aren’t interested because they attend in a different city with their mother on the weekends they are with her, and I figure bimonthly doses of religious brainwashing is quite enough.]
Not content with the polite but consistent message we have been sending, they have chosen in this past month to step up their attacks. Their new campaign is to come by the house during the day (after all, there’s a car in the driveway, and they know I’m home), wake me up, and then ask if they can come in and talk about the Bible with me. The last one took the rudeness to new heights, however. Not only did she wake me up on a day when I was going to get only four hours of sleep, she actually had the nerve [upon seeing my bleary eyes and clutched together robe] to ask if I wanted them to wait while I got dressed so they could come in and discuss the Bible with me. Yeah, right. :smack:
Now, again, I was taught that unless it was a close family member or a very close friend, you just DON’T go barging into someone’s house uninvited, or drop by and invite yourself in. Apparently, either this bubble-headed bleached blonde boorette hadn’t been taught those manners, or else she figures they just didn’t apply to unwashed heathen such as myself.
But I’ve got my revenge planned. I know where these people live, and I’m striking back. I’ve got the name of their churches, and the addresses of their pastors, and of course, I know where they live. So, starting tonight, I’m going to reach out and touch a few of them. I think I’ll start with Nosy Neighbor Prays-A-Lot tonight. I’m going to go by HER house when I get off work at 3 a.m., knock on HER door, and ask if she’d like me to wait until she gets dressed so I can discuss my religious philosophy with her. After all, turn about’s fair play, right?
And besides, I don’t want to go to the trouble of tearing up our lawn to put in the pongee sticks.