TURN OR BURN!!! (but first, do up your pants)
Another tale of Walmart, where humanity struts its schtuff.
Yesterday in the Walmart bathroom someone left religious tracts on the top of all the urinals. Why? Because taking out your johnson and going with the flow puts a man in a spiritual mind set. "Here's some thoughts about Jesus while you pee." Granted, I'd rather someone leave me reading material rather than accost me in person about my eternal security while my junk is unsecured. But the wonderful part of this story is that this is the third time this has happened.
The first time some unknown hand offered spiritual relief while I was seeking relief of another sort, sitting on top of the urinal was a Chick Tract. If you've never seen Chick Tracts, they're the nastiest, most bullying form of evangelism. They're basically mini comic books filled with scare tactics and guilt trips designed to speak to the lizard brain. "Turn to God or burn in HELL!!!" is the basic gist of all of these. But what they lack in subtlety, they make up for in targeting pop culture (did you know the Devil put Bewitched on television to turn people towards the occult? I know, it's a dated reference, but so damn devious!).
The second time, there was a little slip of paper sitting on the urinal with purple print and a picture of a football helmet up in the corner. This being Minnesota, I'm sure the intent was to make some poor schlub see it and think, "Hey, it's sumpin' 'bout the Vikings sittin' here on the terlit. Imma gonna read this terlit Viking thing." But the writing on the slip of paper with the Vikings colored helmet wasn't about football so much as it was about how the Jews were no longer the chosen people of God, and now the Christians have the title. Talk about your bait and switch. I feel kind of sorry for the poor peeing Vikings fan, who I'm going to go out on a limb and guess isn't Jewish to begin with, standing there wanting info on his team and getting an anti-semitic diatribe instead. I can imagine him putting his uncircumsised member away in disgust and finding somewhere else to piss, like housewares. But what I can't imagine is what this message actually wants to accomplish. "Join our team! We're better than those Christ-killers"? Suppose a Jewish guy did walk into a Walmart bathroom in the upper midwest and read about how he wasn't one of the Chosen any more from something propped up against the automatic flusher. Is it reasonable to assume he'd think, "Hmph, that's a good point. Might as well drop the whole 'tradition and heritage' thing, find some Baptists to hang with and eat some shellfish." Seems a bit of a stretch for me. Then again, I don't claim to have a solid grasp on modern religious marketing.
The third time I found evangelical literature on my urinal, I didn't read it past identifying that it was yet another bird-shot attempt at saving the souls of the water-making public. I actually just tossed it into the target area and kept doing what came naturally. Now, I know that was a mean thing to do to the poor Walmart guy who has to come in and clean up later. Who wants to fish a piss-soaked anything out of a public fixture? But here's my rationalization: maybe if the people who work in the store have to deal with smelly messes like that, perhaps they'll find a way to keep whoever the nut is from leaving pamphlets for the rest of us to make smelly messes with. Y'see, I'm trying to build a little incentive here.
And please don't accuse me of pissing on religion. The guy, whoever he was, left the thing right there on the urinal. What was I supposed to do, frame it? Tossing it into the garbage would be the same as cleaning up after the guy. I'm not in business of doing religious nuts favors. I used to be, but I got fired from that job. Three times, in fact. I guess I wasn't cut out for it. Poor, poor me.
I guess that's one thing I have to give those Mormon missionary dweebs credit for: they do their thing in person. Where these door-to-door Mormons, with their Best Buy Geek Squad outfits and corporate nametags, get right up into spitting range and look you in the eye before wasting their breath, the potty-room pamphleteer just drops his message and scampers away, afraid to interact with the damned public he supposedly intends to save. I wonder what those Mormon fucks, who give up whole years of their unreplaceable youth to be abused by jerks like me, would think of the "drop-and-leave" guy. I'd hope they'd scoff at the skittish bastard, but you can't count on those clean cut, upstanding yawn-puppets to scoff with any real style.
I wonder if bathroom guy is the same guy who's been leaving the anti-choice cards laying around the mall all year. Someone's been leaving these business-sized cards with a glossy picture of an aborted fetus next to a dime and the uplifting message "Abortion is murder." They're left on the benches, the garbage cans, the planters, and I found one on top of the box holding the fire extinguisher . . . in case of emergency, I guess. Again, you gotta admire these brave souls who believe so strongly in their convictions that they feel compelled to litter. Again, you probably caught my sarcasm. It ain't that hard. I usually toss it underhand.