Everyone has had a run in or two with religious doorknockers who don't realise that they're just a more self-righteous form of door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. Well a while back at the Loop we'd been pestered quite a bit by Jehovahs for a few weeks running. They were turning up early on a Sunday morning and knocking on the door. This was their first mistake. I mean just who do they expect to impress by going around early on a Sunday morning, the traditional sleep-in morning of the week, waking people up in the name of God? Well as you can imagine we were real impressed, and the name of God wasn't getting any the more popular for their efforts.
Mind you I have a feeling that Rob wasn't helping matters. You see Rob is just plain too nice for his own good, and if there's anything guaranteed to encourage a Jehovah it's being nice to them. He'd be there nodding and smiling at them and they'd think he was enjoying their words of wisdom when really he was wishing they'd leave our place and never come back. Soon enough they'd bring out the usual pamphlets and he'd take them because he's too nice to refuse. And then, encouraged by this, they'd bring out the more expensive pamplets and magazines and try to _sell_ them to him. For money. Something that he desperately didn't want. But he even more desperately didn't want to refuse them, so he'd give them money and they'd give him the pamphlets and magazines. Later on he'd leave these around the house in little festering piles of Christian virtue, sad tokens of a supremely optimistic attempt to twist our minds towards some hopelessly idealistic Christian dogma.
Anyway, what with Rob's smiles and money I'm sure those Jehovahs were really starting to warm to us. They began to visit more and more frequently just to see Rob and they leave a while later with smiling faces and Rob's money. When they came to the door they'd ask for Rob by name - I'm sure they had him marked down as a cert for conversion given enough work. Sadly though, I was a big disappointment to them. I'm sure they had me marked down on their little clipboard as "the rude one" because a couple of times I'd answered the door and been perhaps a tad curt in letting them know that Rob wasn't around. I guess if they had a rubber stamp with "DEVIL'S SPAWN" on it I'd have scored it right on the forehead.
This all came to a head one day when I'd been out quite late the on the Saturday night before, so as you can imagine I was hoping for a bit of a nice Sunday morning lie-in. Instead I found myself cruelly wrenched from my sleep by our doorbell's inane, screeching rendition of "Twinkle twinkle little star". There's nothing more likely to have you awake in palpitations, believe me. Moaning, I dragged myself out of bed, only to be beaten to the doorbell by Rob as usual. I stumbled back into bed and lay there in a sort of daze while Rob spoke with his big chums the Jehovahs. I wasn't too inclined to take them off his hands - after all he was the one who was encouraging them, right?
After a while it began to penetrate my consciousness that their voices were still going strong and by now there was no way I was getting any more sleep. Still, I was sure they'd get the hint sooner or later and leave. Well it turned out to be later, because after some time I was well and truly awake and more than a smidgin unhappy about it, and their voices were still gabbing away.
Poor old Rob must have been punch-drunk out there. Dragged from bed and immediately into religious salestalk it's no wonder that they had it all over him. They'd gabble some incomprehensible claptrap about peace and goodwill and how he didn't have it because he wasn't a Jehovah and he was down to the debasing level of just making polite noises because the previous fifty times he'd tried to actually say something they'd cut him off before he had a chance to get the words out. Rob's such a nice guy and so desperate to not offend that if they told him he was the Devil's spawn he'd just smile and nod and agree with them. He'd probably wear a tail if it made them any happier.
It only took a minute or two of listening in to realise that Rob was in some serious trouble out there. Not only did they have his name and our phone number, they were working on him to go to one of their church services. Now I knew that Rob was about as anxious to attend a Jehovah church service as he was to stand barefooted on a cold doorstep early on a Sunday morning speaking to religious nutters, but Rob being Rob he was umming and erring and just totally incapable of saying no. I knew this was getting bad. It was pretty awful to see Rob digging his own grave like this but worse still they were talking about "dropping in" before the church service. Jehovahs in _my_ house! The horror!
Well something just had to be done. It had to be quick, decisive, and preferably just a little bit cruel too. As I got out of bed a plan occurred to me, and in a trice I had my jeans on and was at my bedroom door. Now my bedroom door is quite close to the front door so when I leant my unclothed upper body out the doorway those Jehovahs could hardly miss it and it must have looked to them a lot like a naked man was on the point of exposing himself. Certainly I'm sure their worst suspicions were confirmed when I smiled languidly and purred, "Come back to bed Rob, I'm getting cold". Giving them both a coquettish look with just a hint of a pout I ducked back into my room. I'll never forget the way their horrified gazes swept from me to land on Rob as if they'd just realised that they'd been speaking the Devil himself.
Back in bed I could hear Rob's mortified voice as he tried to distance himself from me and make up for my rudeness by being even nicer than he'd been previously. But for some reason those Jehovahs just weren't responding to his pleasantries. Quite the opposite in fact - they'd become less than receptive all of a sudden. Strangely they didn't bring up the subject of him going to church again, and it wasn't long before they excused themselves and left the house quite a hurry.
Never had much problem with Jehovahs after that.