Oops

So this conference in WA turned out pretty much the way I figured it would. On the second day I read both "The Miserable Mill" (#4 in the "Series of Unfortunate Events") and "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok. A mother handed one of my stress ball (they look like globes and are very popular) to her baby, who promptly bit off a chunk of it. No one asked where the bathrooms were.

However, there was an added bonus. Bit of background: I was there to promote services that are completely secular but that are offered through a well-known LDS university. Bottom line: I wasn't there in a religious, proselytizing, or recruiting capacity. At all.

Near the end of the day, as I was trying to get rid of my goods, a gentleman stopped and sat in a chair near my booth. He smiled at me as he sat down, so I smiled back and asked if he was tired. He said he wanted to rest his feet for a bit, so I offered him a stress ball to play with while he rested. He said, "Sure" and had me toss it over. So we chatted for a few more seconds and then I went back to what I was doing.

A couple of minutes later, as I was speaking to a couple who had some questions, this gentleman walked over to me and interrupted my conversation to put the ball back in the basket I was holding and say, "I didn't realize this was Mormon material."

I just said, "Okay," and turned back to the people I was with. Then he kind of hung around for the next few minutes, talking to other vendors while sneaking glances over at me. He was probably saying something like "Did you know they let Mormons into this conference?"

Really, I just have no patience for that kind of behavior. It's a latex ball, people. It's not the Book of Mormon, it doesn't have some secret tracking device inside so that the missionaries can find you, and just grow up already.

The part that struck me as funny, though, was imagining how awkward he must have felt, being polite and behaving like a normal human being only to discover after the fact that he shouldn't have. Then he had to run over and go, "Wait, no, I take it back! I take back the friendly! I cannot touch your filthy things!" I mean, we've all been there. I know that every time I'm inadvertently friendly to, say, a Catholic or Muslim, I always feel so awkward afterward. I mean, is it enough to pretend like it never happened, or do you have to go find them and undo it or what? Deep questions, friends. Deep questions.

Posted in: being a Mormon