I got a letter from Norma the other day. I don’t know Norma,
but she told me in the letter that she was disappointed that she couldn’t come
visit me at my home. She had planned to show up at my door, but unfortunately,
COVID-19 is keeping her away.
I say “unfortunately” in the sense of unfortunate for her,
not for me. I wasn’t interested in ever having Norma come to my door, because
in the third sentence of her letter she explained that she’s a Jehovah’s
Witness.
Had Norma’s wish for a home visit been possible, I would
have had to get up from my desk at 10:30 in the morning, gone downstairs and
told the dog to be quiet, answered the door with the anticipation and excitement
of getting an Amazon package that I’d forgotten about ordering, been wildly disappointed
in seeing that Norma was not wearing a reflective vest or holding a mysterious
Amazon package, been even more disappointed when I learned that Norma was a
Jehovah’s Witness, and then been forced to make up a lie about why I can’t talk
right now but would love to have a pamphlet.
I’m too naturally polite to just say “scram,” so I always
have to manufacture a lie instead. I usually go with “horrible communicable
disease ravaging our home,” which is rather ironic with regard to Norma.
Instead of having the pleasure of being shooed off my porch
with the fake threat of infection, an actual threat of infection has forced
Norma to find a computer font that appears as if she actually penned me a
letter in lovely cursive handwriting. I don’t know how much of her day that
took up, or if JW.org has a bunch of fonts they can use, but either way, it’s a
big deal. Printer ink is much more expensive than pen ink.
In addition to the huge financial outlay on printer ink,
Norma had to pay for postage to send me the nice note letting me know that the
bible is great, but JW.org is even better. Then Norma had to take my letter to
the post office to mail it. Ostensibly, that would not have been a huge burden,
since her return address is a local post office box, so she should have been
going there anyway to get her mail.
But the way she wrote her return address made me think that
Norma might not even be from my state, let alone my city. She abbreviated
California "Calif."
That is a dead giveaway. I am fairly certain that there is
no Californian, living or dead, that has ever used "Calif" to
abbreviate our state. And if they have, they should be forced to move. Perhaps
north, to Orego or Washi.
And honestly, even if Norma is local and she just didn't
notice the insane “Calif” autocorrect error on her hand-written letter, I don’t
know if she really wants to come to my door or not. But as a member of the
JW’s, she is certainly obligated to do so. But with so much time at home now,
spending presumably less than half of her day typing out hand-written letters
to non JW’s, I would have thought Norma would have had time to reflect and come
to the same conclusion I came to a long time ago. Namely that it just doesn’t
make any sense for Jehovah’s Witnesses to try to recruit new members.
Once I learned what they believe, I've never understood why
they continued to show up at my door. One of the main beliefs that separates
the JW's from everyone else is they think only 144,000 people actually get to
go to heaven. Not 144 billion or even 144 million. One hundred and forty-four
THOUSAND. I mean, never mind how many people were JW's that have already died,
what about just the current membership?
Based on how often they come to my door during non-COVID
months, I have to assume we have at least six thousand of them just in my
little town in California. I mean, how plain do the numbers need to be?
What do the strategy meetings sound like? “Hey everyone,
let's get out there and severely reduce our already 0.00000000000000001% chance
of getting into heaven. Goooo team!”
I’m just saying, Norma, if I was part of an organization
that told me my job was to do as much as possible to narrow my odds of getting
into heaven, I don’t think I’d be part of that organization for long.
I certainly wouldn’t spend my own money on printer ink and
postage for them!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2020 Marc Schmatjen
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