Your worst convention experience. (page 7)

silent

My worst one was at a convention in the midwest where bleacher seating was located immediately above tightly spaced and packed hard-plastic seating. My legs got really sore and cramped up and so for lunch, I just stepped right behind my seat and sat on the wooden bleacher so I could enjoy my lunch with my legs stretched out. This area had been marked off with yellow tape for which I presume was their attempt at forcing everyone down below into the regular seats so it didn't appear to look so sparse (all about the appearances ya know!) I had an attendant in his upper 40s come over and inform me that I needed to get back down into my seat. I said I would and that I was stretching out my legs. He walked the entire perimeter and when he came back, he zero'd in on me and glared and said, "I thought I told you to sit back down in your seat." That was the beginning of the end for me at conventions. I suffered (yes - suffered!) for years at conventions with sore legs, legs going to sleep, sore butts due to hard seating, sore backs, and just a horrible affair with my comfort. They quit allowing people to bring in lawn chairs (which they used to allow) and it got the point I would start brainstorming about bringing a recliner on a dolly with handicapped placards all over it to see if I could sneak it by. :)

Yet another time I was helping a family member with cleaning duty with the bathrooms. I would sit at this little table and listen to the talks droning on and on. The family member said something about leaving for a little bit and I said okay. So I sat there by myself for quite some time and sure enough, an attendant came up and queried me about why I was sitting there and why I wasn't in my seat with my family. Yet I would see others sitting at desks and the same attendant would just walk on by them. WTF!?!?!?!

Finally one other time, when I was really young, my brother and I would do like kids do and play hide and seek or tag in the auditorium at intermission by walking really fast all up and down the stairs in all the little nooks and crannies (just below a run so we wouldn't get in trouble.) One time I decided to run like I had seen all the other little brats and elder's kids do with impunity and right off the bat, I got stopped by an elderly brother who counseled me about running in Jehovah's house. All this while kids were running by us. I felt so horrid and later when that brother died, I didn't hold back by telling all that asked me if I had heard he passed away what I thought about how he drug me off in a corner to counsel me while others kids kept running by us. JERK!

NEVER in my whole life, have I ever felt so bad for just being myself. I was not an elder's child (in fact I had a handicapped father that precluded me from ever going to other congregations for talks) so I was easy pickings and fodder for anyone who wanted to wreak their counseling arm of authority on me. I would get counseled for just being myself, for wanting to stretch my legs, for doing what others did with impunity (and screw all that talk about Jehovah disciplines those he loves.)

I haven't been to a convention of any sort in about 4 years and I don't miss it at all. As a matter of fact, I'm a lot more relaxed because I know in the small town I'm in, all the JWs will be gone. It's a great feeling.

Honestly, when I look back, once I got a little older and wiser, I really didn't enjoy any of the conventions at all. I enjoyed the motel stay, swimming in the indoor pool, loading up on knick-knacks at the gift shop, and eating out. The conventions bored me and I didn't understand why we had to meet there anyway when everything they said could be covered as talks at the local Kingdom Halls. Does anyone remember the circuit assemblies that would start about 8:15am and run to 5:55 with an hour for lunch? That was forever to a young kid!

It's probably a good idea I don't go, because if I was to sit in the bleacher seats again and I got accosted by an attendant, I'd not only tell him to buzz off, I'd call the police and tell them I was getting harassed by a person in a public facility for sitting in an area that is OPEN to the public and demand they be removed and press charges. I won't back down next time.

silent

BTW: Freddie Franz was small frail man when I saw him back in the 80s. I was taller than him and people were standing in line like he was some kind of a celebrity. I went to get a closer look and then while I was waiting in line, I felt like a fool, and just went back to my seat. He was just a man.

freemindfade

Attending, I really got to see that this is not a special organization. And I am not talking about a handful of weak ones, I am talking about the majority and even well regarded elders and their families. I've never been so disgusted with people. The rudeness, the disregard, these people are only sheep when it comes to buying into BS doctrines. Otherwise they are sneaky, stubborn, entitled @$$HOLES. At one of the last conventions I was an attendant at I had multiple horrible experiences. It sickened me and only pushed along my feeling that these people are nothing special, but love to talk about how their conduct is so different than the world. Well its not

joe134cd

I remember I was about 8 years old and I was into writing letters. I wrote letters to anybody. Anyway we had an international assembly and there were a lot of foreign delegates. I remember approaching one brother who was from Hong Kong and handing over my address and asking him if he knew anybody who would like to communicate with me. He handed the price of paper back saying "that the witnesses in his country were to busy to do that sort of thing. This was to an 8 year old kid. I was in a state of disbelief that an adult would reply like that. A $#e hole.

Crazyguy

My best experience was last year while my family went to the assembly i was at home watching all the seasons of the walking dead, so fun.

blondie

The runners when the doors opened at 8 a.m. The workers inside were closer and grabbed up the good seats, some even before 8 a.m. The ones who saved 20 seats for their friends and family while the same people were saving another 20 seats.

One convention, we walked all over, we had come early, and all the seats were occupied by magazines............and 20 minutes into the program, no one sitting in them.

kaik

My convention in Prague-Strahov in 1991. It was summer, in stadium pan where temperature was soaring to 36C and we were sitting on the sunny side. There was no sufficient refreshment to replenish I was dehydrated. We had constant argument with family between my mom and my siblings and relatives who accused us being spiritually weak because we were dripping with sweat and started to be nauseous by afternoon. My family being extremely fair complexion had a heat stroke. My mom turned into red lobster and I was afraid about her health, but fellow KH did not call anyone for medical care as it was non existent. My elder instead started to criticize everyone who was sweating and said that brothers in Africa have to sit in the convention during much higher temperature. When I completely sweated through my white shirt and tie, I decided to sit only in my T-top, which caused my elder to sent me home. There was very little care for families with children who supposed to get refreshments and care, but they suffered as the rest of us. I was glad that my niece who was a toddler was not there with us.

DwainBowman

I was hurt in two differnt events, 4 years apart. I am very lucky to have been walking these past 20+ years. Well my luck is running out, and the pains are growing! At the great and wondrous IC, it was almost more than I could to walk into the building, let alone, walk for miles to find a seat. 2nd day I knew where the main handicapped seating area was, so that's where I went. I got a seat right away. Ten mintues before the program started, two thugs came and told me I couldn's set there, it was only for those with family in a wheelchair, and I would have to move, when I prostested, one of them reached for my tag, the other told me that these instructions came straight from the oh so loving branch! I took my tag off and wadded it up, before the one could read it, got to my feet and slowly, painfully hobbled away. I took 30+ minutes to find another place to set. In a hallway, on a lower level! Well it turned out ok, being I had no one looking over my shoulders reading my tablet, while I was reading our wonderful web sites!

I may have to go to more of these crap fest, but next time they will have to move me. It took 3 weeks to recover from it!

Dwain

Cimarrona

Being an awkward adolescent then teenager from 2003-2010, walking the hallways during intermission, often alone or with my childhood best friend who,dumb as a doorknob, was much more attractive to JW boys.

Oh! And the assembly when my menstrual blood leaked and I had a huge stain on black and white dress but my parents refused to bring me home even though we were only 30 minutes away. My dad was one of the assembly overseer people so we were like the last to leave after the whole place had been cleaned and everything.

tepidpoultry

My aunt and family were driving back from Canada after a convention in the southeast US, voice from the back seat, "Mommie, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH BILLY!!" "JIM!! PULL OVER, PULL OVER, HE'S NOT BREATHING!! HE'S BLUE!!!" Jim pulls the car over and my aunt, on the road, in the pouring rain,keeps working my little cousin's locked jaw open, they say that if it hadn't been raining he would've died as the rain cooled him down, he has a heart condition to this day from this episode, the cause was food poisoning at the convention from food left out in the heat too long,

:0l

Your worst convention experience.

Share this