9/24/97 - Heaven and Hell

If you will, please allow me to direct your attention to the Carpool Etiquette Handbook for a moment. Specifically, chapter III, section D, paragraph 2, which states fairly clearly:
"If you are receiving free rides to and from work from a known atheist, do not continually badger him to come to your church and beseige him with arrogant appeals to him to open his heart to Jesus Christ, your Lord."
Now, I thought everybody knew this, but somehow, our carpool education system has "let one slip through the cracks", and I ended up with him. Sure, it bothered me from time to time, and occasionally got me so infuriated that I wanted to just pop his door open and kick his righteous ass out onto Route 95 going 75 miles an hour, but I didn't.

And boy, am I glad I didn't, for he worked on me long enough that I finally saw the light, I tell you. Yes, as the Monkees once sang, "Last Train To Cla- no, wait...okay, I meant "I'm a Believer", of course. I cannot thank him enough for being so rude and obnoxious all those times as I was pressing the accelerator through the floor, just trying to somehow shorten the trip so I could jump out of the car and run away, screaming.

But now I feel I have a personal relationship with our Creator, and it could not have possibly come at a more convenient time.

Big Announcement Time

Pinback's Web Central and all its creamy filling are going to be moving pretty soon. I'll be sure to give you plenty of time to switch over once I know the new URL, so keep checking back.

I had received a job offer back up in my home state of Maryland, and although the thought of leaving Florida has been awfully exciting to me for the last few months, I found myself at a point of indecision. Should I just drop everything here, leaving behind a fine job, and a clean home to call my own? Should I just leave behind the oppressive heat, the clinging humidity, the sense of being totally alone, the neighbors screaming at each other in some foreign, loud language? The strip malls decorating every street as far as the eye can see? And most of all, the whining, complaining, obnoxious old people?

I was in turmoil.

That's when it hit me. Time to start taking advantage of my Lord and Savior. No reason I should have to do all the work. So I prayed. I prayed long, and hard. I prayed deep, long, and hard. I prayed for a long time, and with every passing moment, I was praying deeper, and deeper, and harder and harder, my heart pulsating in ecstacy as it probed over and over into the kingdom of God...and when I found Him, I screamed in delight, "Oh, God!! Oh, GOD!!!!!!"

"Whaddya want?" He said.

I asked him for a sign. I believe the actual prayer went like this:
"Oh, for Christ's sake...
Should I stay or should I go?
Should I stay or should I go?
If I go, will there be trouble?
If I stay, will there be double?
So, come on, Lord, let me know...
Should I stay or should I go?"
Not an unreasonable request, I don't think. Just a little sign, that's all. So I waited.

Anyone who has lived here for any period of time knows what the two major local pastimes are:
1. Drinking.
2. Going to foul-smelling, humid movie theaters.
I had already gone through half the list on this particular weekend, so it was time to "round out the fun" on a Sunday afternoon by visiting my local cinema to viddy the new David Fincher movie, The Game. An enjoyable two hours, to be sure, even though the front speakers in the theater weren't on, so all the audience could hear was the echoes and reverb of the characters' voices, and not the actual voices themselves. As a result, I'm not quite sure what the movie was about, but it had a lot of pretty colors and lights moving around, which were fun to watch. Hey, it was cheaper than a lava lamp.

Well, the end credits started to roll, and way in the back of the theater, there started a rumblin'. I slowly walked up the aisle to see what the commotion was about. And even in the darkened theater, I could tell, it was a large, roving gang of...

Old People(TM)

Now, when I say "old", let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. Have you ever gone on a tour of a redwood forest, where the tour guide takes you around and provides the helpful service of making sure you notice the gigantic, Eiffel tower-sized trees right in front of your face, that have been there for thousands and thousands of years?

The trees are the tour guides to see these people.

And I'm starting to hear their chattering, and they are sounding none too pleased. There are about twenty of them, half of them named Mildred, the other half named Bernie, and they seem to have reached a verdict about the film they had just viewed.

They didn't like it. Or as Bernie.4 said to Mildred.2, "That was one of da woist pictchas I've evah seen!!" Mildred responded in kind, "Wheah do we get a refund?"

I thought she was kidding. She had to have been kidding, right?

I make a pitstop before leaving the theater (just in time to stop Mildred.7 from going into the Berni- I mean, the men's room), and as I stared down at the splattered rim of the bowl (it wasn't me), I just prayed again to my newfound King and Holy Father that she was kidding.

I walked outside the theater.

There they were, congregating near the box office. A veritable bevy of Bernies and a mob of Mildreds preparing to unleash their geriatric fury on the unsuspecting theater. The lead Bernie led the rallying cry, "Wheah do we get our money back?!!" Three of the Mildreds chimed in, "Yeah, we want refunds!!!"

This can't be happening. I warily queried one of the lesser Bernies (weilding a "cursed walking cane [-3]"), "You didn't like it?"

"What?" Apparently I had awakened him from a mid-afternoon nap. "The Game! You didn't like it?" "Aw, that was one da WOIST! DA WOIST PICTCHAS!!" I tried to quell his outrage, "Nah, it was fun!" "Young man, -"

I never got to finish the conversation, since at that moment the riotous group began pushing itself along and then descended on the box office and the terrified, helpless employee trapped inside. I couldn't bear to watch.

I sulked back to my car, feeling defeated, feeling hopeless and depressed that there could be people, supposedly the "wise, mature" members of society, that could behave in such an abhorrent, disgusting, repuls-

A single ray of sunshine burst forth from the tenebrous cover of altocirrus, falling directly upon me in what seemed like a perfect circle. I looked up, shading my eyes from the brightness, to see what force had created this seemingly unnatural occurrence.

The sign. This was the sign, that my dear Lord sweet Jesus H. Christ had seen fit to bless me with! I mean, if a group of ancient, Depends-wearing jackasses screaming in anger at the poor ticket-taker that they wanted to get their money back for their matinee-priced, seniors' rate-discounted tickets for a movie that they had just seen fit to sit all the way through is not a sign from God, then what the hell is?

I knew then what I must do. Get the hell out of here.

So, I'll be back in Maryland within a week, and I'll get the new page set up, and everything'll be back to normal.

Praise the Lord, goddammit.

Pinback's Web Central
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That was in case any of you devious types were thinking of stealing all my cool stuff. So there.
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