Dodging Religious Door-To-Doors

Humor of the Day ^

[SAMWolf]

It's Saturday morning when, suddenly, you hear a knock at the door. Everyone you know is either hung over or cleaning house. They all know better than to attempt any contact with you before noon anyway. It can only be one thing. Religious canvassers. Actually, that's two things, since, like snakes, they travel in pairs. You peek out the window, expecting to see two kids who look like IBM recruits.

Instead, you see a pudgy old lady in a faded print dress, attended by a skinny teenage girl with stringy hair and more freckles than a trout. The girl glances nervously at the slit in the curtain and quickly looks away. Girl Scout cookies? Raffle tickets?

Opening the door out of curiosity, you become the proud owner of a copy of their tract. It was the girl who fooled you. You never figured they'd bring a kid along. You rack your brains for some gracious means of escape, making a silent resolution that next time you'll follow your instinct to stand motionless in the middle of the living room hoping that protective coloration will render you invisible.

Rack your brains no longer! After years of similar experiences, we have developed several techniques for turning those agonizing encounters into hours of entertainment. Here are just a few of the great techniques you can use:

1. Listen for a minute or two with a polite but puzzled expression and then speak in a foreign language. Better yet, make one up. Brand names for electronic components serve as an excellent base for an impromptu language. I've found the following bit to be an excellent opener: 'Fritzen mitsuba micht sony leam spartinza. Nakamichi shpont olufsen takamine. Cheloken eraza fleecht?'

2. Before you open the door, put on a pair of Groucho glasses and pour some Pine Sol in a coffee cup. Then attempt to engage them in a serious debate, spreading Pine Sol fumes by blowing occasionally into the cup as if you are cooling it. See how long you can hold them. Try to remember not to drink out of the cup.

3. Pretend to be deaf. Point to your ears, shake your head, and make intricate movements with your fingers and hands. This can backfire if they happen to know sign language. In that case, switch to being blind.

4. Ask them if they are from the health board about the hepatitis quarantine. Offer them a sip of your coffee.

5. Tell them you are not allowed to talk to strangers until the assault case has come to trial. More effective if you come to the door with a knife or a baseball bat.

6. Using a cordless phone, call someone you haven't talked to for a while. Then go to the door and make gestures like you'll only be a minute. See how long they stay.

[CatoRenasci]

When I was young, I, too, enjoyed spoofs on and making fun of religious door-to-doors. It all seems a pretty tawdry way to have 'fun' when you think about it. About as challenging as shooting fish in a barrel.

Folks, as wrong as you may think these people are, they're sincere and doing what they believe their religious duty. Would you want someone to make fun of you going to church or temple?

The simple, polite thing to do is to answer the door, wish them a good morning and firmly, but cordially decline to discuss anything with them. Even wish them a good day as you tell them you're going and must get about your business. What goes around, comes around. Or, if you like, think of it as going for good karma rather than bad karma. Or as a mitzvah, being kind. Or as your Christian duty to turn the other cheek. Or simple good manners.

[Great Dane]

Funny read, but we don't bother with any of it anymore, we figure it's our house, our door bell, we just openly ignore them. I remember once, on their way off the property they saw us, gestured that they wanted to talk to us, we gestured back........... don't bother, they left.

[Matchett-PI]

Question: What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah's Witness?

Answer: Someone who knocks at your door for no apparent reason.

[Jim Scott]

I agree. I simply say to JW's that I have studied their religion and found it totally false and so, I'm not interested in talking to them; then I ask them to please leave my property; then I shut the door and walk away. Easy. They stopped coming back about five years ago.

[ksen]

I know that if our church members came to your door and you answered like that then we would be very happy. We don't see it as our job to pump up the numbers of our church, that's God's job. We go out to give the Gospel to people; we are not trying to steal from anyone else's church (we call it poaching from someone else's flock).

-ksen

[Polybius]

One of my medical colleagues told me that she would get a visit early every Saturday or Sunday morning when she was in medical residency training from these canvassers. As residency training entails being up all night, every third night, that meant that she was chronically sleep deprived and used whatever weekend morning she had free to catch up on her sleep. Her polite requests to not come back had no impact on the weekly visits.

Then, one weekend, she had had enough. When the doorbell rang, she burst out of bed and stormed to the front. She went directly to the front door without stopping to do anything…….even though she slept in the nude.

So, when the door flew open, there was this extremely irate, buck naked woman who yelled and cussed at them for two minutes straight.

They never came back.

Of course, this method only works for Democrat Liberals like my colleague. Republican women seldom feel comfortable yelling at strangers while buck naked.

[Great Dane]

#17......... tried the language thing once, they couldn't reply, but luck would have it that they had a Danish version of the watchtower. :-}

[AppyPappy]

we are not trying to steal from anyone else's church (we call it poaching from someone else's flock).

Churches are full of unsaved people. Sometimes it takes the Gospel message in a different format to wake up people.

[ChemistCat]

My problem isn't with religious door-to-doors. We have LDS bumper stickers on our cars, so that's probably why. They know we could dish it out faster than they can! What troubles ME is the neighborhood kids. They ALWAYS show up when I'm cooking dinner and they NEVER just ring the doorbell once or twice. I'm disabled and I move kind of slowly, so they can get in six or seven or eleven rings by the time I get there. This was bad last year but it was HORRIBLE this year because we put in a swimming pool. It was strange because I would tell them, "I'm sorry, nobody can swim here without a note from Mom saying it's okay and giving me an emergency phone number," and they'd run home, and not come back!!! Then the next day they'd ring the doorbell again, hoping my policy had changed I guess. I finally concluded that Mom was often NOT HOME to write notes!

Honestly, I could wring their little necks. It amazes me that other people will let their small children roam the neighborhood going to houses of people they don't know. (Most of these parents never come out of the house to check on their kids, let alone meet neighbors.) My kids aren't allowed out without us, period. There's a convicted sex offender on the next street over. I told my 7-year-old yesterday that she's not allowed to go out and play on the street for the same reason I don't spread all my money in the driveway.

Telemarketers forced me to get an unlisted number. We couldn't get through a family prayer or dinner or a bedtime story; once we counted 8 sales calls in one hour. I didn't want to pay for call waiting.

[maxwell]

Question: What do you get when you cross a Unitarian with a Jehovah's Witness?
Answer: Someone who knocks at your door for no apparent reason.

LMAO!!!

I've been waiting for the right thread to post this joke for a LONG TIME, folks... Now is as inappropriate as any other time.

How many choir members does it take to change a light bulb?

Charismatics: Only one. Hands already in the air.

Roman Catholics: None. They use candles.

Pentecostals: Ten. One to change the bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.

Presbyterians: None. God has predestined when the lights will be on and off.

Episcopalians: Eight. One to call the electrician, and seven to say how much they liked the old one better.

Mormons: Five. One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Unitarians: "We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship with your light bulb, and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent,fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence."

Baptists: At least 15. One to change the light bulb, and two or three committees to approve the change. Oh, and also one to provide a casserole.

Methodists: (see Baptists)

Lutherans: None. Lutherans don't believe in change.

[ksen]

That is true. I should have said that we won't discourage anyone from attending our church, but if they are faithful members of another church, especially a like-minded, fundamentalist church, getting them to switch churches will not be our focus, getting the Gospel message into their hands, whether as a tract or video, is our main thrust.

-ksen

[NorthernRight]

We already have a brass sign on the wall, next to the front door:

No Hawkers
No Solicitors
Any missionaries showing up on my doorstep on a Saturday morning, I simply point to the mezzuzah on the doorpost.
I usually keep a few copies of Jews for Judaism anti-missionary material around, and hand some to them.
Last time I did that was four years ago, and haven't been bothered since.

[maxwell]

Dude, I thought I was seriously disturbed. Have a toke, man.

[ksen]

Baptists: At least 15. One to change the light bulb, and two or three committees to approve the change. Oh, and also one to provide a casserole.

Ouch! That one hits home (especially the casserole part, yum!). LOL!

-ksen

[Lizavetta]

When we lived in town I just put a sign above my doorbell that read "No salesmen or religious solicitors" and it usually worked.

But still, it used to annoy me to see them drag their kids around on a Saturday morning in church garb prostletyzing when they should have been at home in their jammies watching cartoons and being kids.

[AppyPappy]

Actually it should be: Baptist - 5. One to change the bulb and 4 to complain about the new bulb and form another church with the old bulb.

Presbyterian - none. The congregation voted against the funding of the new bulb. The General Assembly then voted to have a homosexual install the new bulb at a cost of $10,000.