Just lately I seem to be encountering the occasional JW partaking of a bevvy or two in my local pub. So, I was wondering, what would I do if a dub came in for a pint of lunch and then, after noticing me, activated his implanted shun-the-apostate chip? Actually, I know exactly what I would do, I would tell him to eff off and use a different pub.
So it was, that on Tuesday night, around about 9. 30, I ambled down to the pub quietly looking forward to a pint or 4 . The place was virtually deserted except for a solitary figure sat at the bar hunched over a pint of Newcastle Brown. OK, you and I know that Newcastle Brown is brown sugar water, gnats pee, a disgusting thing that brings constipation etc, but the thing is that I was taken aback when I realised that the lone drinker was none other than George ******, dub hard man extraordinaire.
Now, when I say hard man, I mean a physically hard fellow, a guy who has been publicly reprimanded for punching an elder at a circuit assembly. George is a big pussy cat to his friends, but if he suspects you are lying to him..BANG! ‘Oh my dose is broken!’
Back to the plot. George saw me and promptly slapped me on the back, crushed my hand with his own mighty grip, poked me in the chest and asked me what I was drinking. Pint of Ushers Best Bitter please, I gasped, George, you have hands like shovels, let go of me, ow ow ow. How are you, me Boyo he beamed, you ready to turn back to Jehovah yet? Sod off George, I replied, oh, and by the way, I was disfellowshipped for doing exactly what you are doing now, talking to a DF’d person., ha ha, gotcha now!
Perhaps I should explain at this point that I have changed my tactics when I encounter a dub who asks me if I’m going to turn back to Jehovah, because that is such a loaded question. I have recently started to take the offensive, rather than waffle on about what nice guys us ex’s really are and how we all love everyone, I’m still a xtian you know, blah blah blah. My response to George is the response that I now give to all JW’s who approach me. It shakes them rigid too. This is what I did with George:
I pulled up a bar stool and set right next to him at the bar. I looked at him and gave him a big wide grin. I beckoned with my finger and asked him to come closer still. He looked bemused, but eventually sat facing me, his head was about 12 inches from mine. I said, George, do you really, really want to know why I won’t come back to the witnesses, never ever come back?
He nodded. I said: “ I won’t come back because your religion lied about 1975. I was there, they did say to sell our houses and go preaching. I wont come back because shunning is nor scriptural, the only time a man was shunned in the Bible was because he was bonking his Dad’s missus and wouldn’t stop. I won’t come back because the WT has been a secret associate member of the UN for 10 years and is trying to cover it up. I won’t come back because there is no connection between the faithful and discrete slave parable and the 144,000, none at all, and you know it too”.
Well, George just sat there gawping at me, his mouth literally hanging open in surprise at my vehemence. I grinned broadly at him and left him to sit there whilst I went for a pee. When I came back, he grabbed my arm and asked me about the UN. I said that the WT said that they joined to get a library ticket. He roared that you don’t have to join the UN to use the library, anyone can use it, surely? Then he asked me didn’t I realise that the FDS was all tied in with a prophecy by Zechariah about pulling something out of a well?
I said George don’t be so bloody stupid, you don’t believe it any more than I do, it’s just a habit with you, knock it on the head for God’s sake! He just sat there moaning about his family, moaning about the liars that he knew at the KH, and what he told me was happening with Dub-in-the-pub, well, I can’t believe it’s true, so until I get some verification I’m not saying anything.
But, the thing is, that when I tackled him about his religion, I went straight for the throat, straight at his core beliefs, all in one paragraphed phrase. It was almost as though he needed to be rocked on his feet before his dub façade could crack. Crack it did too, because guess where he was the very next night? That’s right, back in the pub wanting to talk to me. More on that later as the situation develops.
So what do you reckon to all this? Is it possible that we can sometimes be too patient and understanding with JW’s because we are frightened of scaring them away? Do you think that we empathise with them so much that we become ineffective? Is there a room for us to respond much more aggressively as I did with a devastating short burst that shatters several of their core beliefs in one go?
Englishman.
Bring on the dancing girls!