Even though my car is fixed, I still take the bus to and from work. It’s a short commute, but long enough to get a few good chapters in of whatever I’m reading. And in this case, I’m on a speed-reading mission to finish the book club selections. I’m in two book clubs and both meetings have fallen on the same weekend – one of which I’m hosting – and ask me if I’m finished with either book. Nope. But I’m getting there.
I’ve been so into one of the books that I’m reading that I haven’t been paying attention to my surroundings.
Yesterday, I ended up with an elbow full of gum. Probably some nasty individual or unsupervised child stuck their disgusting bright blue minty wad of germy gum on the window sill. A wad that promptly adhered to the sleeve of my beautiful black leather trench coat. WTF, people? Who just sticks a hunk of gum on the window of a bus??
I still haven’t managed to get it all off, because every time I start scraping, I think of how the substance that I’m pulling at was once in some random person’s mouth. And then I start thinking of all of the diseases they could have (including mental illness for thinking that it was a good idea to use a bus windowsill as their own private gum receptacle), and I break out the Lysol to sterilize my hands.
Then, this morning, I was at the bus stop making good use of my longer-than-acceptable waiting time by reading my book, and a car pulled up to me really slowly. I looked up and stepped back from the curb (thinking that an abduction would be a terrible way to start the day), and as the car approached, the window went down and the woman in the passenger’s seat stretched her hand out to give me a piece of biblical literature, which I refused to take.
As they pulled off, I thought – “Oh my God! I’ve just had a Jehovah’s Witness drive-by!”
Isn’t it bad enough that they ring my bell whenever I forget to lock my gate? Or try to hand us literature as we’re walking down the street? NOW we have them approaching us in cars, scaring the shit out of us first thing in the morning? Is there no justice? No decency?
And, seriously? If your mission is to be a street-team proselytizer, isn’t it a tad lazy to do it from the car? Not that I’m trying to give them any ideas (because from my perspective, it’s actually much easier to step back while giving them the Heisman than to give an in-your-face verbal refusal), but I think I would have been a more captive audience had they approached me on foot. I wouldn’t have listened, and I would have still refused their pamphlets, but I would have at least been stuck in one place and less likely to call 911 from my cell phone.
From a productivity standpoint, I can’t imagine that there’s a high conversion rate using the drive-by method. (Then again, I can’t imagine that there’s a high conversion rate regardless of the methodology, but I digress . . .) Anyone who’s ever watched the news knows that it’s a very bad idea to approach a strange car, and I would imagine that a legal professional would say that approaching a strange car full of zealots ups the ante of danger.
All of this excitement before 7:30 am.
