My father was a half-ass Witness.
He liked to pour over the New Testament at meals, pointing out the sudden death of harlots in between bites but he never, ever went door-to-door.
According to Jehovah’s by-laws, all good Witnesses are required to share the news of everlasting life. My father, however, blatantly refused to peddle The Watchtower, our new religion’s weekly magazine on eternal damnation.
When approached by the church elders and reminded of his religious duty, he said he didn’t like people but I, on the other hand, was constantly encouraged to spread the divine word in our community.
I recoiled repeatedly, highlighting the fact that if my father wasn’t concerned with strangers melting down at the gates of Paradise, neither was I.
Publicly, I felt for the souls of the damned but secretly I was consumed with thoughts of the hottest boy at my junior high, Josh, opening the door after my fevered buzzing, shirtless and sweaty from soccer practice.
I, of course, would be standing on the wicker welcome mat in my spit-shined shoes and pigtails, talking in tongues about the end of the world. My goal of a date for the ninth-grade dance would slowly evaporate in the sunset as the Teen Beat poster boy guzzled Sunny Delight in his gym shorts.
No, I refused to stalk the sidewalks for God while Josh showered and slept in my neighborhood. My father reluctantly agreed.
