Jehovah's Witnesses

[porphyry]

That was a close one.

We've had our first visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses today, two young, seemingly normal women. They were pretty young and rather cute, too. Their heavy makeup and high heels surprised me, as well as the fact that it wasn't two men.

They didn't ask about my religion or lack thereof, nor did they keep me overly long. Madeline and I were both standing at the door in our pajamas and robes, so I guess they read the clues and simply handed me an invitation to a service which would explain to me (as if I, steeped in Catholicism, wouldn't know) the reason for Jesus' death and resurrection. But I guess even the Catholic version, to them, is the wrong version anyway. But I really didn't feel like discussing the issue; I was terribly nervous.

I guess they thought I seemed nervous because I wasn't properly dressed, but that wasn't why. The whole time they were talking, I was terribly distracted by noises Malkhos was making as he hastily was trying to pull on clothes. He knows.I thought. He's going to come and confront them and cause a scene. The neighbors will call the police. I'll have to bail him out of jail..

Just as he approached, the two young women were wishing me well and moving off the porch. Simultaneously, Malkhos was coming up behind me. Little did they know it, but Madeline and I were the only things between them and Malkhos's wrath. I shut the door just as he approached.

"Who was that, Mama?" Madeline asked.

"Don't worry about it, Madeline," I said.

"Dangerous lunatics, that's who it was!" Malkhos said.

"Madeline doesn't understand that," I said.

"What did they want?" Madeline asked.

"They want to see us burning in hell," Malkhos said. "They look forward to it with glee!"

"Don't frighten her," I said, handing him the tract they'd given me.

Comments

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I figured you'd be pretty happy to know that not all of them are living in your town.

Malkhos is--sorry, we're not on the metric system here, so I don't know if this will mean much to you--six feet two inches tall and not scrawny by any means.

You know, I've had to deal with this with him before--rolling down car windows and shouting "Mormon scum" at the Mormoms, carrying on in public about the Jesuits and Freemasons--ugh. I doubt he would have been nearly so combative with these two due to their gender and overall attractiveness, but still--I felt like I needed to protect them anyway just in case God didn't intervene for them. He can get pretty nasty in a verbal tete-a-tete.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Britain is curiously hybrid when it comes to weights and measures. Food is metric. Drinks are metric in shops, but imperial in pubs. Petrol is sold in litres but speed limits are displayed as mph. Weight and height is always calculated in metric units in hospitals, but always expressed in stone, feet and inches in everyday conversation. It's a total mess. I was educated in Hong Kong, which in true undemocratic British colonial style dispensed with all imperial units in the early 1980s, overnight, no debate permitted. Sometimes fascism is so much more effective.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Well, actually then, we have that in common. Here, we purchase soft drinks by liters; milk by the gallon or half-gallon. We buy gas (petrol to you) by the gallon but purchase oil for cars in quarts. So that same sort of hybrid measurement system exists here too. I don't know why we can't just go one way or the other.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Why does Orwell keep insinuating himself into this thread? You'll recall one of the few things we actually hear said by a prole is a lament for the pint, since a half-liter is too little and a liter too much.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Orwell lives, Malkhos. He is with us, always, if we would but open our hearts to him. He characterised British proles quite well. They're still like that.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm so cynical; I've read 1984 too many times.