A Girl...

They'll Save Your Soul with Candy and a Smile

When we were in Salt Lake a fortnight and a half ago, the inevitable happened. The Mormons showed up.

I should have known the missionaries would come a-calling. They found my apartment not two months after I'd moved to Berkeley, they knocked on a friend's door when I was staying with him in LA during Spring Break of 1998, and they where there on the train platform, eating ice cream cones (vanilla), in Bassano del Grappa, a little town in northern-eastern Italy, when I was traveling through in August of 2000.

THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

Usually when I open the door to the poor, unsuspecting, fresh-faced youths, I give them a real fighting chance. I tell them, "Listen. Guys. You really don't want to get into this with me. You really, really don't." And then I pat them on their helmut-hair heads and send them on their way. If they find me somewhere other than Utah, they usually say, "So, you're from Utah. Do you know Ben Young? Do you know Christy Pingree? Do you know Jenny Merrill?" And of course I do, because that's how Mormon Geography works. I just found out the other day that I was semi-friends with a first-cousin of America's Sweetheart Elizabeth Smart. Not to mention that I tutored some of her junior high friends. And my ex used to run into her kidnapper on the street all the time. Call it smalltownitis in a city of 1 million people.

My favorite all-time response to a missionary visit was when my friend Diane answered the door in all her new-age-crystal-necklace-making, flowy-batik-skirt-wearing, middle-aged, airy-fairy goddess garb and said, "Oh great! I was just looking for some virgins to sacrifice!" The missionaries, they left in a hurry.

Aside from the fun you can have teasing/scaring them, missionaries are also good for 1) translating what the Italian station agent is saying about the trains not running for the rest of the day and you'll have to take a five-hour bus ride if you want to see Verona and b) giving you Snickers bars and inspriational bookmarks on your birthday.

The second reason is why the missionaries--hot young girl ones!--showed up at my parents house the weekend Simon and I were visiting for my genius baby brother's birthday. Even though my brother hasn't been to church since he was five years old and they made him sit in the hall because he was asking too many questions about the whole God thing, they know when his birthday is and they have a special holy Snickers bar with his name on it. How did they know when his birthday was? Because the Church keeps everyone's stats in a folder in a file in a drawer in a vault that is buried deep inside the granite core of a mountain. No kidding. (See section 516 in this document about how THE MORMONS WILL BAPTIZE YOU INTO THEIR RELIGION AFTER YOU'RE DEAD.) They know when your birthday is too.

If you ask the right ones, the Mormons will tell you they know an awful lot about simply everything, but they know an especial lot about people. They might tell you they came by some particular personal information via prayer or revelation, but more likely it was your friends or coworkers spying on you and then reporting back to the authorities. One time, when I was about 18, we'd just gotten back from a family vacation to Florida and the missionaries showed up for my birthday (because they know). I only opened the door so I could real quick take my birthday Snickers bar and then run away without having to get into anything heavy with them, but I was stunned out of my snatch-and-slam plan when they immediately started in on "How was your vacation? We heard you went to Florida. Fourteen days is a nice long break, isn't it. Was it humid? I hear it's humid." Oooookaaaaay...The only people we'd told about our vacation were the neighbors who'd agreed to keep an eye on the house, and by gum if they hadn't gone and told the church about it. Which is cool because, you know, having strangers tell me all about the vacation I just got back from the day before isn't at all creepy and doesn't remind me of Big Brother, not even a little, no! In fact, it makes me want to know Jesus as my personal savior. Not.

Snickers bar or not, I'll know better than to open the door next time.

Usually when the doorbell rings and we can sense The Spirit on the other side of the door, we all hit the deck and army crawl out of the room. This is a good policy.

So a few weeks ago when I'm standing in living room in front of the big picture window and I see them coming in their flowered dresses and crunchy church hair, and it is then that I realize, oh shit, not only is it my genius baby brother's birthday but I have brought into the household a lapsed Catholic with whom I am having extra-marital relations, and that's like a hanging a huge neon arrow over the house with a sign that says PROSTHELETIZE HERE. The wrath of Heavenly Father, it was upon me and it was wearing New Balance sneakers with its skirt.

So I see the hot young missionary girls coming. (Note: They sent hot young girls instead of sweet young boys because when a twenty-four-year-old genius is approached by Girls Who Couldn't Find Husbands Before Thier Twenty-First Birthdays, it immediately makes him want to embrace the holy spirit.) So here come the sisters up the driveway and I did what I've been trained to do, which is sound the alarm, round up the women and children, and hunker down in the Apocalypse Cellar with the one-year supply of food.

"What's going on? What's the commotion?" my sweet, naive boyfriend says.

"It's the Mormons! Don't let them in!" says Dad.

"Shhh! They'll hear you!" says Mom.

(My genius baby brother missed all the excitement because he was still asleep, it being 4 p.m. and all.)

"Well, I'll talk to them," Simon says and heads toward the door.

"Don't do it!" "Don't let them in!" "Don't be too nice!" "Don't tell them yes, you want to know more!"

Brave young Simon, he answered the door. Brave young Simon, he faced them head on and survived. Brave young Simon, he forgot to grab the Snickers.

Posted by Leah at November 17, 2005 06:37 PM