phil ringnalda

While I love the idea (as reported in The Times) of banging on the door of your local Jehovah’s Witnesses church during their services to offer them some magazines, the really useful, but not widely known, information is down at the bottom of the article:

Paul Gillies, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Britain, said: “If someone states they do not want our representatives to call we make a note and avoid calling.”

Surprisingly enough, that’s true. I never would have known it if it wasn’t for the former owners of my house. The first time the Witlesses came by after I bought the house, they wanted to know if I was (the former owner’s name), because he had asked that they not come by. I re-upped the “stay away”, and now they just come by once a year, to be sure that a sinner who wants redemption hasn’t moved in yet.

Of course, for real fun with the Witlesses you have to go to The River Why:

When they offered him the comics they called “littercher”—”a term,” said H2O, “the first two syllables of which approach the truth”—he would cooly misinform them that he and his family were passionately attached to the Church of England and had no use for their propaganda. (This confused the hell out of the Avon Lady.) Of course, none of us but H2O had ever been to church except for weddings, but the Witless—tongue-tied by the frigid eloquence of one of God’s Frozen People (H2O’s nickname for himself and all Anglicans)—would either take silent leave or find themselves conversing with an abruptly closed door.

Ma’s technique was less articulate, more woodsy, and such a delight to Bill Bob and me that a rainy day would sometimes sink us to our knees to beseech Fathern Heaven or R. Lord to send along a Witless. When the knocker sounded, Ma would size up the visitor through a fisheye peephole she’d installed for such occasions. If she spotted comic books she would repair to the closet, return to the door, let it swing slowly open, and stand there—wordless, immobile and menacing—while the unfortunate caller grew cognizant of the fact that a wild, unreliable-looking woman had a double-barreled shotgun aimed at his or her knees. (Ma figured if you shot their knees you shot their ability to pray.) Her invitations to “clear the hell offa my property” were never refused or even discussed.

Mmmm. I believe I’m due for another reading of The River Why (despite the fact that it might well be reading number twenty).