Return of the J-Dubs

Guess who stopped by my house for a visit on Saturday?  My pals the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  The ole JW’s.  The J-Dubs, if you will. God, how I’ve missed them!

I first noticed that they were on my street when they knocked on my neighbor’s door (my Pentecostal neighbors, I should note).  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation:

  Jehovah’s Witness: “You’re going to hell.”
  Pentecostal Neighbor: “No, you are.”
  JW: “No, you are.”
  PN: “No. You.”
  JW: “No. You.”

I’m surprised it ever ended!

Let me first say that when the J-Dubs come to my house I treat them with respect.  Well, first I try to hide from them but if I can’t avoid contact then I treat them with respect and hustle them off as quickly as possible.  It must be really hard to go door-to-door espousing your personal beliefs to complete strangers, and while I disagree with their beliefs they’re just doing their thing. Whatever.

My personal choice is to spend as little energy as possible on religion.  I’m not an atheist or a theist or a deist or any kid of an “ist”.  I guess if I had to declare myself I’d say I’m an indifferent agnostic.  Is it possible that there is a God and a Devil and a heaven and an afterlife?  Absolutely.  There are a lot of religious options out there, I’m just not interested in participating in any of them.  I liken my view on religion to a high school guy who can’t decide whether to ask out the homecoming queen or the less attractive girl who is more likely to accept, so he just goes out with his buddies instead.

But back to my Saturday guests.  I was effectively hiding from them in Jeff’s office until I had to leave the house to take Marley to the vet.  I walked out the back door, put Marley in the car and...AMBUSH!  They were standing in my driveway.  How do they do that?  One minute they were across the street and the next minute they were right in front of me.  Spooky!

I like to immediately take the upper hand in these situations, so I said “Hello.  Out visiting today?” (Hello, Captain Obvious here) and I reached out my hand to take the pamphlet offering of the day.  They handed me a pamphlet and said “We’d like to invite you to a service to celebrate the death of Jesus.”  Ummmm.  OK.  I replied “Thanks, I’m just headed out.”  That was the entire exchange.

So I got in the car, glanced at the pamphlet and noticed that the “celebration” they invited me to was at...wait for it...a frigging funeral home.  Sweet. Jesus.  Apparently the J-Dubs are celebrating the death of the son of their God at The Flanigan Funeral Home.   Not much surprises me, but this?  Had me wondering just what events are planned for the death celebration.  Will there be a casket?  Will someone be in said casket?  I have to admit I’m almost tempted to hit this thing up just to see what goes on (but I won’t).

I know what you’re thinking: “Bullsh*t, LAB.  You must be making this up”.

And to you I say:

BAM!  You should know better than to doubt me.  As an aside, I’d like to mention that somebody needs to work on their sticker-sticking skills.

The whole episode got me to thinking (which is never good): next time they visit, can I treat the J-Dubs with respect and still mess with them just a little?  They kind of owe me some slack after the whole funeral home invitation, right?  

I’m thinking next time they knock on my door I’m going to pretend like they represent the Fellowship of the Sun from True Blood.  I imagine it would go something like this:

  JWs: We’d like to invite you to a…

  LAB: (interrupts) DIE FANGERS!

  JWs: Excuse me?

  LAB: Praise his holy light!  You guys packing?

  JWs: What?

  LAB: Stakes!!!  You have them with you, right?

  JWs: What?

  LAB: Never know when you’ll need to stake a vamper!

  JWs: (backing away) Heresapamphletwehavetogo.

How awesome would that be?