by Witness 007 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I loved having the CO stay at our House when I was a Kid..
My mom would Buy Groceries..And..Cook them!!..
3 meals a day and Multiples Dishes for Each Meal!!..A frigg`in Smorgasboard!!
When the CO left..
So did the Groceries and Cooking..
.................................................................................
"GoodBye Groceries..GoodBye Cooking..Goodbye Brother CO!"..
"If you don`t See my Dog the Next Time you Come"..
"I probably had to Eat Him!"..
..........................
...OUTLAW
As a kid, we had COs park their trailers or motor homes in our yard. Some were down-to-earth, some were stick-up-their-butts kid-haters.
As a grown-up elder, we had many COs over for lunch. Again, it was all over the map. Some were prima donnas, judging both the food and our family's "spirituality". Others were very humble and appreciative. I remember one who even said, "Hey, if you just want to take us to McDonald's for the $.99 menu, that's fine with us." I thought that was an outstanding example of humility.
The very best I can remember was a really fun couple who enjoyed our company so much, they would agree to Saturday lunch. They would make sure that there was no afternoon field service or elder's meeting. That way they could spend the afternoon enjoying great food and music and getting semi-tipsy with us on very good vino. I'm pretty sure the boys in Patterson wouldn't have approved of that arrangement.
om
It must have appeared that way to many!
I can recall some in the congregation with their noses right out of joint, when they did not get to host the CO for a meal.
Bill.
Hey, we had COs whose wives had "special dietary needs" as well! Is it a prerequisite for being a CO or maybe it's just code for "When you cook for us, you do something SPECIAL!" Then there was God's dictator Alan Sigg (or "Sieg Heil!" as people called him) whose wife had a wonderfully uplifting life experience in the Aug 22 1987 Awake dealing her problem with excessive blood flow while she was out witnessing. Thanks, Lynette. Nice mental image.
We did have a really nice couple stay with us in Melbourne who, on Sunday afternoon, just came back and crashed and we watched the Beatles Anthology DVDs. I think they really tired of all the attention and the expectation placed on them. They hated having to generate conversation at the dinner table. I wonder if secretly they really hated being on the circuit .... or being in the friggin' religion at all.
I remember years ago one CO saying he groaned every time he went to some "dear sister's" home and she had quiche or some similarly rich egg dish, because he knew he'd be farting all afternoon.
Then there was a grumpy old sod, now departed, in Brisbane who would drone on and on at the meetings when he was there, overshooting the meeting time by a good half-hour if he was in the mood ... we were invited to dinner with him at an elder's place. The elder's prim little wife prepared dinner and then let everyone know it was ready .... dear old Ray the CO decided we could all eat when he was good and ready, 'cos he was a bit busy writing a letter or something.
I hated the way people fawned over them. I'd spent only a few months in one congregation and met the CO, who asked me what I thought of it. "Not very good," I said. "They all stick to themselves. No one seems very happy." He hurrumphed and said, "Well, that's not what I saw. Everyone seems very chatty and cheerful!" I just looked at him and wondered if he realised they all turned it on whenever he was there. Of course he'd be the bloody centre of attention when he was visiting!
Some were so fake. One pompous d**khead gave a pious speech on the Tuesday night and suggested that after the meeting children might like to take their notebooks to him to show him their notes of his talk. My kids went and showed him something they'd written down and he gave them a sticker without more than a glance at their notes or bothering to ask their names. It was all "Yeah, kid, now piss off." My kids just wandered away scratching their heads, thinking, "Why did I bother?" I'm sure he believed he was the kids' favorite and was really in touch with the "littlies".
we actually did have the CO and his wife over once....
archie and mary datok
we had several families over so it was more like a party
and SHE was hilarious! it was actually lots of fun....
her off color-joke, told after she dismissed the children
dying man goes to dr, who tells the wife...
"your husband CAN recover if you cook, clean and
have sex with him every day" .... husband asks
wife what the dr said and she replies "he said you're gonna die"
nothing like that sense of being in the company of royalty....
I never had the hounder-hounder for dinner, and I don't think I missed anything. They would only hound me about every CD, video tape, video game, every little spot on the floor or scratch in the sink, or that I don't do quite enough in field circus. Then, they would expect me to have zero in the way of electronics or other "distractions"--yet they would want to be served on plates of pure rhodium and utensils of platinum.
They don't deserve anything. They don't contribute any value for me--I think plastic spoons and soak-prone paper plates would be too good and too high class for these humanoids. And, the "phude" in the plates--I would rather put things like monosodium glutamate, high fructose corn syrup, and water with all the fluoride left in for them. Hey, maybe if I successfully ruin their brains, they wouldn't say anything about the Christmas lights and music they would have to listen to.
There was on particular CO I really liked, so on his next visit I had them over for dinner. Used the good china, crystal stemware, did a home-cooked, 5 course gourmet meal from scratch. Rolls from scratch, salad dressing from scratch, cheesecake from scratch....went all out. It was really nice. Served champagne too. A few weeks later I got appointed MS.
Later we got a new CO who was grumpy. He and his wife had a long list of things they supposedly could not eat. Ordinary things like corn. I took them to an All -You-Can-Eat place and they went crazy eating all the desserts especially chocolate cake. I quickly went to the store next door and bought chocolate for them. That's all they ate were about 6 or 7 desserts each and the whole package of chocolate that I sneaked into the restaurant. The CO told me he found it amusing that when a congregation knows he's coming they clean the place and all the elders and MS get haircuts and everyone is on their best behavior till he leaves.
...she couldn't talk since she was cooking for the C.O and his wife who have special dietary needs...
Is there a traveling overseer alive anywhere, where either he or his wife don't need special dietary needs? You couldn't just take the bastard out to a cafeteria, noooo....he had to have specially cooked, special ingredient mush in a bowl at just the right consistency and just the right temperature. Get it off just a little and they'd in the least make faces or at the worst berate you on how you should cook.
We fed the CO once. And you're not just cooking for him and his wife. No, this asshole will bring an entourage with him. Oh, he'll 'ask' if it's okay, but you now the drill... you don't dare say no. So now your house is full of elders, pioneers and other assorted sycophantic suck-ups and brown-nosers. You have to worry about not only your house being presentably clean, you have to make sure any and all 'questionable' material...books, movies, music are all out of sight and not easily found by the snoopers.
It was so stressful a meal, I swore when it was over never again.
edit: so in answer to the original question: Having the Circuit Oversear over for dinner...was it like a royal visit for you? The answer is, It was like a royal pain in the ass visit.
We lived next door to the KHall, so it was always our "privelege" to have the CO stay at our home. Some CO couples made their stay with us so easy and comfortable. They were the ones who were rarely there. The last CO couple declined all invites out for the evening wishing to stay in. So then it became my "privelege" to prepare each evening meal for the time they were with us,not to mention breakfast too. They had their list of will not eat. Oh and by the way they would not allow food to be brought in or have any of the cong to drop by for a visit. At the time we had 3 kids at home. The rest of the cong. felt left out of the privelege to have them in their home for a meal and an evening of encouragement. But the CO wife said she couldn't stand the local food. Besides all the cooking I was doing, I was of course expected to join the cong for special week of field service activities. That was always the longest week, Tues noon to Tues noon. When the PO notified me of their next visit and told me of course they requested to stay with us, I told him that I was going to pass the "privelged" on to someone else, after all I had had them the last two times. He was horrified that I wouldn't jump at the chance to have them again. Well, he guilted me into it, and I wanted to be a good wife and a support to my elder husband. My happiest day came when we moved from that house and changed cong. Now many years later, as a fader I look back and shutter at how we all cow-towed to them like they were better than the rest of us.
