"So-Called Pentecostals" and Other Hell-Bound Folks
"I stood there and smiled while she went on and on. I can take verbal abuse; I played Little League. What frustrated me were the sadistic fantasies I had about tormenting Bonnie. At one point she asked me what I was going to do to fix the situation. "I don't know, slap you with a Bible," I wondered to myself. Then she wanted to know what she was supposed to do. "Go play in traffic."
I'm really not a violent person. More than anything I was furious at myself for the hatred toward Bonnie boiling over in my soul. I wish I could say is she the only cranky customer I ever have. The truth is, most of my day I spend trying to massage the egos of condescending suburbanites who spit on my very existence. It's enough to make a man an athiest. And we wonder why people think religion is a tool of oppression and hatred. We treat our dogs better than our own Christian brothers and sisters. Glory, glory hallelujah."
I had to laugh when I read that man's frustrated account of working in Christian retail and having to deal with "so-called Christians," mainly because it brings such a keen reminder of my friend Dimple's retail experiences with "so-called Apostolic/Pentecostals."
Dimples is a guy, and of course you can't tell a guy is A/P unless his wife, mother or girlfriend is with him. So being completely oblivious of his religious affiliation, other A/Ps would waltz in his store all the time and treat him like cr -- er, manure. "This one Pentecostal lady is the rudest customer of all!" he vented to me day. "So I finally got tired of it, and today I told her, 'You're Pentecostal, aren't you? Well, if all Pentecostals are as rude as you are, I'll never be Pentecostal!'"
"Dimples!" I was horrified. "You didn't really tell her that, did you?"
"No," he sighed. "But I wanted to."
To their credit, people from my church were always nice to him, he reports. Until he wanted to date me that is, because he's Pentecostal. In my tiny neck of the woods, independent Apostolics and UPC Pentecostals are not the same and never the twain shall meet, either. Indie Apostolics are the ultra-cons . . .
("You can always tell who's Apostolic," Dimples observed once, "because her hair is perfect.")
while the Pentecostals are going to hell . . .
("And you can always tell who's Pentecostal because her skirt is always split.")
according to us perfectly-coiffed, Freez-It sniffin' Apostolics. My brother and I are the only ones who have dared to date those compromising Pentecostals who are watering down the message and turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and sensuality with their videos and hierarchial organizations. (My brother and I are such rebels.) Dimples is the most pure, spiritually committed guy I know, while my brother's girlfriend, a girl I'll call Nurse Roses, is a soft-spoken beauty who never forgets anyone's birthday. It's just too bad they're going to hell.
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