Could God make a missionary so annoying even He couldn't stand him?

I was in Miramichi last Tuesday, which is a trip I really enjoy making; but I had a midwinter cold coming on and was feeling pretty punk, and by the time I returned Wednesday lunchtime I was really sick. I went straight home and crawled into bed; and didn't crawl out of it again until I returned to work this morning - 4 ½ days of sheer misery - except for a brief disaster on Saturday morning which has done nothing to improve my opinion of evangelical religion.

The door alarm went off at 10 a.m. Saturday. As I mentioned before, my deaf door alarm sets my bedside lamp flashing and the vibrating disc buzzing, and since I am still deaf whenever I am not wearing my processor - for example, when I'm asleep - it's still necessary. It's also handy because, in spite of its success, the implant isn't powerful enough to let me hear a knock at the front door when I am upstairs.

"Dammit," I thought - often in the winter the wind will be strong enough and in just the right direction to set the thing off, and if you don't switch it off manually at the door, it'll go off repeatedly. Since I share the bed with Husband and two cats, it was my duty to clump downstairs, headcold and all, and switch it off for the morning.

When I opened the porch door, however, there was someone on the doorstep - and me, without my processor on, deaf as a post. "Crap," I muttered, and gestured to the young woman to "wait there". Back upstairs I ran. Got the processor out of its overnight case. Got a battery out of the recharger. Put everything on. Ran back downstairs. Counted cats to make sure nobody would slip out. Threw the front door open. There were a young woman and a young man, the latter holding in his hand - a bible.

"Good morning, Madam. We were just in your neighbourhood, and..."

"Oh, no," I said. "Oh, no, no, no. You are not going to tell me you got me out of my sick bed at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning to..." I gestured at his bible weakly. "You have got to be kidding..."

He laughed nervously. She looked like she was hoping the steps would open up and swallow her.

I waved over their shoulders. "No," I said. "Go away. I'm sorry. No."

I shut the door and went back inside to the two cats, who were standing at their food dishes expectantly. "Oh, for God's sake," I sighed. I reached for their Tupperware® food container. "What do these people think," I said aloud, "that there are people out there waiting to buy their faith from a door-to-door salesman? That there are people at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning thinking, 'You know what I wish would come to the door? A belief system!'"

I started to drag my poor, sore bones back up the stairs and turned to look at the cats, who considered the whole thing a smashing success since they'd gotten breakfast without even having to make the effort to bug us out of bed. "Damned cats prob'ly put a call in for someone," I muttered. "'Could you send someone around about ten? I don't think you'll have much luck getting either of them up before then, regardless.'"

At least someone's opinion of evangelicals was improved.

ronnie