It's probably another sign of the tanking economy, but I seem to be receiving a few more uninvited visitors than usual in the last few weeks. The visitors have offered to replace my roof, build me a nice driveway and a gate to go with it, re-landscape my yard, build a nice stone wall around the yard, sell me a year's supply of steak and trim my trees.
The latter two were a little tempting, I negotiated my way down from a year's supply of beef to a small selection that 1) I could fit in the freezer and 2) cost me much less than a day's wages. The tree trimming guy, as delightful a person as he was, will likely not get my business as I suspect he isn't insured and the last thing I need is a credit-destroying lawsuit when he falls off a tree, but we have each other's numbers and if he's legitimate I might ask for his business in the future. The norfolk pines in the yard are getting awfully tall.
The other two visitors, both returning ones and with no knowledge of the economy, I'm sure, appear to both be harbingers of doom. Firstly, the Black Witch returned, and that's the picture at the top. I've written about the moth before and in many cultures it's a bad sign (hence the name!), but it's still a magnificent looking animal. This one was particularly large with a wingspan well over 6-inches.
The other visitors, and particularly unwelcome ones here, were the two ladies that used to insist on calling by each Saturday to talk to me about religion. Now, I'm generally a very polite person and someone who'll treat anyone with respect even if I disrespect them, especially face-to-face, and there was no exception when they used to bother me each weekend, even when they called at 7:30 in the morning after I'd got down from the summit at around 2am. I got pissed off with them regularly, however, and politely told them each time to leave. I have a Darwin symbol on my front door, a fish with legs with the word "DARWIN" in the middle which I was told would deter these people from knocking on the front door. It never worked.
Now for a change of mood...
Jehovah's Witnesses are a seemingly unintelligent, intransiently stupid and willfully ignorant group of people that love nothing more than to annoy other people at home in order to force thier religion on others, at least in my opinion. You'd think that after so many of their predictions over the years that the world was coming to a sticky end and all of those predictions failing, that they may have revisited their beliefs. It's clear, however, that the evidence the planet is still here as well as the human race is being ignored by this clue-free ultra-religious bunch of numbnuts.
Years ago I managed to stop their visits by leaving a lot of empty wine bottles and beer cans out on the front porch (they have a problem with alcohol, apparently Jesus didn't, but that's another argument), but I couldn't do that indefinitely. In any case, it stopped them. But now they're back, and when I'm not home I get left with their newsletter called the Watchtower or similar. It always goes straight into the compost heap, so am grateful to them for that but not for them waking me up again the other day.
Any ideas on how to stop these people from visiting? I've had one or two ideas in the past but never followed them through due to indecency laws. For example, one of them was to leave a sign outside saying "Saturday morning orgy, all welcome", but I wasn't brave enough to do that.
9 comments:
LOL Tom; I used to have an old lady coming ringing my door every Saturday to talk to me about religion. I felt sorry for her the first time and talked to her for an hour, then she kept coming for months and I kept hiding.;)
She stopped coming suddenly and in a way, I did worry about her for a while.
Wow; the strangest thing Tom; I got "blessing" as a verification word to post this comment here.
Now what do you make out of that???
The simple truth that worked for me...
"Sorry, I'm not interested - I'm Jewish"
I've watched them purposefully walk past my house ever since.
I once told 2 who came to my door that they'd come at a bad time... I'd just finished making my sacrifice to Beelzebub and there was blood all over the place... if they could come back later, it'd be appreciated.
They didn't.
True story.
They sometimes ring my bell, but it's more and more rarely. I usually just tell them cheerfully no, thanks, I already have a god. They seem to accept that, and that may explain the rarer visits.
The most fun I had answering JWs was when a pair I met on the street shoved an issue of Watchtower at me while pointing to its cover showing a nuclear bomb's mushroom cloud and a headline screaming "Are We Doomed?" The pair asked me what I thought was the answer to that question. I cheerfully said, "Not doomed at all!" which so surprised them, they quickly moved on without saying another word.
Made me wonder about the state of mind of non-JWs.
Tom
Put that sign up and you may not get any religious nuts knocking on your door Saturday morning, but other, more interesting folk might turn up....
Worth a try... ;-)
Ant
I usually go with the truth - "I'm not interested, I've seen The Watchtower before, and you won't convince me, if you leave any written material I won't read it, please don't come back."
PS: believing in apocalyptic prophesies despite being proven wrong isn't limited to JWs. Just look at Obama's head science honcho, who was one of those predicting worldwide famine in the 1980s. I think apocalyptic thinking is hardwired into us.
My spouse, who is really irritated by anyone who comes onto our porch trying to sell us anything -- religious or otherwise, keeps threatening to invite them in to join us while we celebrate Black Mass. But I usually just hide while the dog barks at them until they go away.
I will, though, tell the freakin' magic-panty-wearing mormons what I think of them next time they show up on my porch -- they haven't been by since their church went all in on Prop 8 in California, but I've been saving up my hostility toward them for the next ones that come around.
I have some JW family members; long complicated story, but I don't espouse their beliefs. I particularly dislike their refusal to celebrate holidays, as I think it makes their kids who go to public school pretty sad when they have to leave the room when someone has a birthday party with their classmates. I'm sure the Puritan ancestors I just learned I have are screaming at me as I write this, but I don't care. I hate seeing kids have to suffer.
I usually only get visited once, by both JWs and Mormons. I offer to pray with and for them, that they might see the message of Jesus Christ as one of love, peace, tolerance, and joy, instead of acting more like the Pharisees of that time and place.
"If you were
blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see,
your guilt remains."
(shrug) Wonder why they don't come back...
I've never had to ask them where they live so I could go knock on their door once a week to preach, but I would if I had to :)
All - thanks for your comments! I've had a friend suggest a tactic that she swears by, and that's pretend you're even more religiously devout than they are.
I have a few options to think about but obviously can't try them all out if they keep sending the same people, the game would be up!
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