Bitches love Iceland

So this one time I met this bitch who fucking LOVES Iceland. I mean, I thought I had a passion for England, but what I thought was my love for England is nothing but a slight fluttering of the heart that one might feel if England were a passing hot man on a bus, compared to this girl's infatuation with Iceland. See, when she would talk about Iceland I was tempted to ask if the two of them needed a moment alone.

Speaking of needing a moment alone with a country...


Everything we saw around us would remind her of something she saw in Iceland when she was on vacation there last week. She had a sip of beer and then talked about how she had a beer back in Iceland. I asked her if it tasted anything like the beer she was drinking now, and is that why she brought it up? And she said, "No, it was just a beer. The beer reminded me that I drank beer in Iceland." She then pointed at her sweater and revealed that it was bought in Iceland. We passed postcards in shops, and she informed me that (shockingly) they do in fact sell Iceland postcards in Iceland. We were in Paris at the moment, and she thought it important to tell me (lest I think otherwise) that, unlike these Parisian postcards, the Iceland postcards didn't have the Eiffel Tower on them. If it drizzled, the drops of rain would be compared to the size of the raindrops in Iceland. The five words she knew in Icelandic were unfavorably compared to the three words she had learned in French, and her understanding of the Icelandic governmental system (gleaned from about four days spent there) was used to give comparative analysis of the French governmental system (the understanding of which was gleaned from about two days spent in Paris).

Anyway, I met Mrs. Iceland when I was staying in a youth hostel in Paris back in December when I got so upset that I had to leave the country for a good ol' fashioned mope. She was exactly my age and, when compared with our other roommate who on our first night went on a tirade against toilet paper, she seemed relatively normal. Sure, I said. Sure I'll go touring with you tomorrow. I figured maybe this trip didn't have to be all about moping and feeling sorry for myself (though there'd still be plenty of time for that), and maybe I could even make a new friend.

Though I guess I should've taken the hint when she kept demanding that I do a British accent for her. She was Australian and for some reason was obsessed with the fact that I now live in England. "Speak in an English accent!" she'd shriek at me. "COME ON, SPEAK IN AN ENGLISH ACCENT!" The first few times I laughed it off and said that I couldn't do a good one. But then after about the tenth time she asked me I began to wonder if this girl had escaped from some sort of a treatment program for people with perverted obsessions with poorly done foreign accents. By the twentieth time I was contemplating suicide. I shrugged it off though and still agreed to spend the day seeing the sights of Paris with her, embracing the excuse to stop lying face-down on the bed and acting almost paralytic with sadness.

Spending the day with Mrs. Iceland turned out to be quite the eye-opener. I guess the major lesson I learned is that never, in ANY circumstances, tell people that you teach. I've learned that people take the line, "I'm a teacher" as an invitation to have explosive diarrhea of inane questions that would make even your 6th graders think, "What a retard." Like, it's to the point where I would now prefer to tell people I have a thriving career as a rapist, because then at least people would leave me well the fuck alone.

I guess I should have been relieved that for once this girl was expressing an interest in something other than my ability to do a fake English accent or the noble nation of Iceland, but in reality I just wanted to stuff a rag into her mouth. A rag that was attached to a Molotov cocktail. The soundtrack of Paris was replaced by this girl's constant stream of "What is that? What is this? Where are we? How do you say French fries in French? How do you say toilets in French? How do you say how do you say in French? Comment d---wait, how did it go? Comment dit-on France in French? Comment dit-on I like in French? Okay, j'aime Iceland. Is that how you say I like Iceland in French? How do you say fjords in French?"

She asked for a steady stream of vocabulary in French, and for some reason understood only by Mrs Iceland and God, she felt it necessary to specify "in French" at the end of every request. As though I'd suddenly assume she were asking me about Hebrew if she didn't clarify each and every goddamn time.

"Where are we again? Wait, where's that? What is that? How do you say Notre Dame in French? Notre Dame? That's weird."

Finally I suggested we visit the Sainte-Chapelle, as I had fond memories of the windows when I last visited a few years ago.

And then this girl came up with a winner: "Tell me the history of Sainte-Chapelle." What? Like, what about it? "Yeah, just tell me the history." Um...
I told her I didn't remember, that last time I was there about about four years ago. She then changed her question: "Oh. Then how much did the entry cost?" I reminded her that, again, it was four years ago and I didn't remember. And she just about had a stroke, so shocked was she. How could I not remember how much something cost four years ago???? THAT'S RIDICULOUS!!!

Yes, because what I remember about vacations is ticket prices.

I guess the clincher though was sitting at a sidewalk cafe, the kind of place where you pay 8 euro for a hot chocolate. Trying to make conversation, and perhaps sensing that I had long since checked out of the conversation, she asked me a question about religion. "Tell me the difference between Islam and Christianity," she asked.

Hmm. I honestly told her I was happy to talk about religion, but I didn't know where to even begin with that kind of question. Is there anything specific she wanted to know? Could she narrow down her question and then maybe I could help her out?

She carefully considered my request, and then asked, "So is Abraham a prophet in Islam and also in Christianity?" I answered her question by backing up a little, explaining what a prophet is, and then answering that, yes, Abraham is a prophet in both.

And she responded by nodding sagely and saying, "Ah, so they're the same religion then?"

I got a little flustered, "Well, not exactly. They have some things in common, and they both like Abraham, but they're also quite different."

"Right," she argued, "but if they both have Abraham as a prophet then they're the same religion, yeah?"

"Um. I..."


I guess now would also be a good time to point out that Mrs Iceland was the daughter of Methodist ministers.

At this point I gave up. You have a creepy fascination with English accents, you basically want to have sex with Iceland, you ask stupid questions, and now you think that having anything in the middle part of a Venn Diagram makes both sides of the Venn Diagram the exact same thing. Learn the concept of Venn Diagrams, lady, and then we'll talk. So fuck you, Mrs Iceland. We're done. Tomorrow I'd rather take a gamble on Miss "Toilet Paper is the Devil's Work."

That time I didn't understand whisky

I normally try to avoid writing in a public place about people I know and about things that happen with these people. Not this time. And while this post is sort of (okay, ENTIRELY) about making fun of two people, I just want to say before you read on that, in case it isn’t clear enough, these are two all-around awesome dudes.
Also, I got permission from them to write about them. And my God am I going to abuse that permission.



I was starting to get tired and began slipping down in my seat while listening to two guys describing a 34-year-old with a lot of character. This 34-year-old has so much character, they said. Part of me wanted to ask more questions about this 34-year-old, but then I remembered they were talking about whisky.

Let’s back up a bit and meet Tom and Ed, the guys I was with. Well, to start, they’re both RE trainees so they’re both extremely weird (read AWESOME) and conversations with them tend to descend into debates about things like the continuity of Christian doctrine. Tom is a vaguely Jewish-looking Northerner who writes a food blog and worships a North American goddess of wind. And the only way to describe Ed is that I don’t think he realizes the full extent of his own poshness. And that when he looks at his iPad he has the same look of awe in his face that I’ve seen fathers have when they look at their newborn children.

They’re two very different people, each loveable in his own way, but what they have in common is that they both have a passion for whisky that is completely beyond the scope of my understanding. When Ed graciously invited Tom and me to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society (of which he is a member), I was pretty excited to finally understand why they both always have pleasant, wistful looks on their faces whenever they get together and discuss whiskies past.

Plus it was a nice way to rinse away the annoying other part of the day, in which we went to a Hindu temple and the dude leading us around would not shut the fuck up about how baller his temple is. But apparently I was the only one of the group who felt such strong animosity towards this guy… Guess that’s me in a nutshell—constant, inexplicable rage.

So anyway, we get to the Whisky Society and I’m delighted to find it’s a small but warm atmosphere. But then the whisky came out and suddenly I was watching two ostensibly sane individuals sniffing glasses of whisky as though they were anteaters trying to sniff up ants. I swear I saw the whisky ripple from the force of their sniffing. Then they would hold their glasses up to the light and marvel with religious reverence at how brown or not each whisky was. Desperately trying to fit in, I too lifted my glass and commented on the fact that it was, indeed, quite brown. Not as brown as Tom’s, but slightly browner than Ed’s. Mmm yes, quite brown.

The whole experience was pretty overwhelming, particularly the menu. Each whisky had a paragraph—or a lovingly crafted ode, rather—describing its flavors with words like “dance” or “journey” or other actions that whisky is clearly incapable of performing. I think in addition to my eyes being duds my tongue must also not work, because all I tasted was Jack Daniels. Some whiskies tasted slightly less like Jack Daniels, and some slightly more. And I must say, when I describe Jack Daniels I don’t talk of flowers or ice cream or smoke or fruit.

Quite honestly, when I think of the taste of Jack Daniels I’m reminded of what the kibbutz laundry room I worked in for half a year smelled like. Basically Jack Daniels tastes of harsh, industrial strength laundry detergent, dusty metal, and hummus-based body odor.

So maybe whisky tasting isn’t for me, maybe it’s just a bit beyond me. I’m still thankful for the opportunity to get to know Tom and Ed a little better, even if doing so involved learning that they are slightly more retarded than previously thought. I did have a fabulous time, and I think the next time I’m forced to drink Jack Daniels I’m going to hold it up to the light, sniff it, and try pick flowers in it.

Of course I spend the weekend in Paris and the only comment I have is about its bathrooms.

So this one time I fled to Paris on a whim. After a ridiculously long sit in Sacre Coeur contemplating what a complete and utter jackass I am, I decided that I was being called to something. Not to a vocation but to the toilets. I went on a quest that took me through narrow alleyways, stands of men desperate to sell me crepes, and European Urine Pockets. (Just as Chicago has random pockets of fart smell called, quite shockingly, Fart Pockets, Europe has random areas that smell of pee even when no urine is visibly presence)

Hang on, we interrupt this blog post to inform you that the two bespectacled, scrawny and massively nerdy folks, one female the other presumably male, at the table next to me at Café O’Conway at Gare du Nord Paris keep discussing what great quantities of weed they’re going to smoke in Amsterdam. Have fun with that, guys.

Once talk of drugs died down an awkward silence fell over their table. The guy pushed his glasses up and puffed his chest out like he was one of those birds hopping around trying to attract a mate. His voice dropped about five octaves and his accent even shifted to sound less Midwestern and more Californian: “Dude, at my college we have soooooo many pigeons.”

For a brief, unguarded moment the girl gave him a stare that seemed to suggest she was appalled at how boring this guy was, and then quickly looked away as she uncomfortably folded and unfolded the empty sugar packets that were on their table. Another awkward silence. You could practically hear the thoughts in the guy’s head: “How can I save this?” And clearly the best answer his brain could come up with was to say to the girl, “So we used to play ‘Kick the Pigeon.’”

Had we been in a slapstick film this would have been the moment for the girl to do a spit-take. But this being real life she just managed to somehow kind of choke on the last remaining drops of her Diet Coke. After the coughing died down she spluttered out a “WHAT?!”

Again, the guy tried to save it: “Um…um…yeah, it was a bloodbath! [*uncomfortable forced laugh*]” At this the girl started looking around desperately, presumably to find the hidden cameras, as she shouted, “WHAT? THERE WAS BLOOD???” The boy turned bright red, muttering, “Well, no, now that I think of it there was no blood…”

Anyway. Sacre Coeur. France. Toilets. I needed one. Soooo: after a long quest through Montmartre in which I suspect I may have at one point crossed into Belgium, I finally found a set of bathrooms that (to my paranoid, San Adreas Fault-warped eyes) looked rather precariously perched on top of this hill. In fact, even the sidewalk in the area was tilted and seemed to have fallen about halfway down the hill. Though nature kept calling and leaving increasingly frustrated voicemails, I couldn’t help but hesitate after imagining the entire bathroom sliding down the mountain about as gracefully as little me would slide down our hardwood stairs in a sleeping bag. Sliding down the stairs always ended in a few bruises on my ass, whereas riding the bathroom like a flume ride down this mountain would prolly end with my lifeless body in a mass grave somewhere in France because at the time my parents had no idea I was even in France. So do I risk riding the bathroom? Do I go big or go home (with wet pants)?

Pee gets the best of me and I end up entering this bathroom only to find a sort of old-fashioned courtyard. It’s tiled and wooden and for some reason it makes me think of Main Street at Disneyland, that same sort of faux old timey charm, though this being Paris the old timey charm was more likely vrai than faux. In the center of this courtyard—nay, piazza—was an attendant safely encased in what looked like an old-fashioned movie theater ticket window.

In general I find the European concept of someone being employed to facilitate your bowel movement experience a challenging one. But I find the bathroom attendants hidden away behind glass like they work in a high security bank instead of a place where people shit, write on walls, and occasionally have sex, to be a step beyond weird. If I had to rob something I don’t think the toilets at Sacre Coeur would be the first large haul target to come to mind. Then again, maybe I just haven’t given this enough thought.

I stood staring at this woman and her movie ticket window forcefield (“Hi, I’d like one ticket to the 2:00 pm showing of ‘Sam Urinates Today: Part II’”), and I tried to look for a sign indicating how much the Europeans would make me pay this time. Would I be able to hear her response or was this the sort of ticket window glass that as the bane of my existence, the type where the other person shouts (or mimes shouting) and all you hear is a faint buzzing?

Well, my questions were answered when I heard frantic knocking. Startled, I looked up to find the attendant knocking on the window with a panicked look on her face. Thinking my time had come to help someone in distress, I rushed up to the window to save this woman from whatever evil had befallen her. Heart attack? I’ve seen enough “House” to administer CPR. Invisible alien murderer strangling her? I’ve seen a similar amount of “Doctor Who.”

At this point the lady stopped her morse code of distress, pointed at a stall, and commanded me in French to go to it. Again, I was slightly confused so I hesitated. She tapped again, looking like she cannot BELIEVE how much time I’m wasting, and again barked at me in Paris talk to go to that stall. And in case I didn’t get the point, she had a terrified look in her eyes as she punctuated her command with an “ALLEZ-Y!” that seemed to herald the end of the world should I not make my way to that stall immediately.

I knew at this point I should just get my ass to the damn stall, but again I paused. I turned around and slowly passed a wary hand through the empty air to see if there were until now unseen hordes waiting behind me. No, this bathroom was so empty that if the movie ticket lady weren’t tapping the window and shouting “ALLEZ-Y” like it’s her job (maybe it is?), then I’m sure you could have heard crickets chirping, although in France I bet crickets play mournful accordion tunes of loves lost instead.

So I’m completely alone in this enormous bathroom up a mountain in Paris. And yet someone has decided I need to get my happy ass into a stall RIGHT NOW, hurrying like Indiana Jones trying to escape the Temple. Clearly the only appropriate response to this would have been, “Lady, how badly do you think I need to go pee?”

So this one time I died at Freshers' Fair

I feel like every single day of my life my sneaking suspicion that I’m not quite like everyone else gets confirmed. That’s not to say that I’m BETTER than everyone (though, come on, you know I am), it’s just that I seem to be on a slightly different frequency. Last week I had another fine example of this characteristic that defines me when I became convinced, while in line for Domino’s Pizza vouchers, that I had in fact died.

I suppose some context would be helpful. Because I like to collect flyers and other things that I’ll simply throw away later, I decided to go to the Freshers’ Fair, which (for my American readers) is the university’s activities fair. After carefully considering which clubs sounded the most appealing in my thoughtful and discriminating mind, I ended by signing up for any group that harassed me into giving them my e-mail address. So basically I’m now a member of everything. Of my own free will I signed up for the Doctor Who Club (run by people who, quite predictably, make me look like I have social skills), the Walking Club, and the Conservatives.

So anyway, towards the end there was a line where you could get coupons and vouchers for Domino’s Pizza. I didn’t even really want Domino’s Pizza because I’ve been eating so much cake that if I eat even one slice of pizza I think my pants are just going to concede defeat and split open. “You win this time, Sam’s Caloric Intake,” they’ll sigh as they wave the white flag of my underwear. But everyone else seemed so excited about the free pizza, and I so badly wanted to fit in…so I stood in line.

A pimply employee came down the line handing out vouchers, one for each student, while we waited in line to get to the main table. I saw him come down the line, closer and closer to me, handing a voucher to the person in front of me, walking right past me, then handing a voucher to the person behind me. Not wanting to make a big deal out of not receiving something I didn’t even want in the first place, I just shut up and continued to stand in line. But then two people walked in and, without even noticing my existence, cut the line right in front of me.

It was at this point that I realized that something was up. I appeared to be invisible. “Aw shit,” I calmly observed, “I’m dead, aren’t I.” Wracking my brain I tried to deduce how exactly I managed to die at Fresher’s Fair, I realized that I didn’t particularly give a shit how I died now that I was dead. To be honest, the five minutes in which I thought I was dead I was probably the least scared of death I’ve ever been in my life. Like, if this is how calm and relaxed I’ll be when the time actually comes, I mean, I’m good to go.

After a couple minutes of just standing around taking in my newfound mortality, my first plan of action as a dead person was to decide to go to the movie theater. I figured that I may be dead, but the awesome thing about this version of death, that is being an invisible person that still walks the Earth as a ghost or spirit or whatever, is that at least I can go to the movies for free now. I looked at my watch and wondered if I could make the matinee of “The Lion King.”

Taking my first steps as a confirmed dead person, I strode towards the door with the confidence of someone who knows that from now on clothing is optional—and I immediately bumped into someone. “Oh, pardon me,” he Englishly apologized on my behalf. At that point I rather loudly thought out loud, “Shit!” and the poor polite guy probably assumed that I was some kind of a nut who swears at people after colliding with them. But no, the truth is that I wasn’t pissed off at this guy for getting in my way. The truth was that I was just pissed off I wasn’t dead because now I have to pay 12 bucks to go see “The Lion King” in 3D.

Writing is against my birthright.

So I’m still having trouble comprehending this whole issue of pens in UK schools. From my limited experience (observations in six schools—still prolly more classroom experience than Michael Gove), I’ve concluded that British children must be allergic to pens. At the start of every class period inevitably a small riot breaks out as the kids loudly inform Miss that they don’t have a pen or demand that Sir lend them one from the supply that he finds himself forced to bring with him.

I find it genuinely fascinating that it doesn’t occur to these children to bring their own goddamn pens to each lesson, and I often like to speculate on the thought process behind that one. I imagine that these children think that they are going to simply do interpretive dance all day at school and are then on a daily basis deeply shocked and offended to find that going to school usually involves writing at least a couple things down in your notebook—“Wait, we’re going to have to write things down? IN SCHOOL???”

I really just don’t get it. In my school people rarely forgot pens. And if you did you would very quickly have a quiet word with your neighbor to ask, completely humiliated and one step away from performing public self-flagellation, whether you could borrow a pen. And if that neighbor was me, you would then have to sign a contract. Because I was that desperate to not have any friends.

The kids’ aversion to pens is almost as confusing to me as British teachers’ obsession with having the kids underline things with rulers as opposed to simply letting the children do the terrifyingly bold and dangerous task of freehanding lines underneath entire words (dare I even imagine such a world?!), which seems like such a frustratingly massive waste of time that it might even earn itself its own blog post.

you knew this post was coming.

I’ve actually lost a bit of weight here—true, I still look like a manatee with glasses, but it has gotten to the point where pairs of once-tight pants (trousers, not underpants, if any Brits are reading this) have started slipping down, causing me to either rely on the one belt I own or frantically hike up the waistband every five steps like I’m doing a folk dance. Part of me is thrilled about the possibility of at some point no longer being the Fat American, but then the practical part of me is sort of panicked about how I will be able to afford new pants should this trend continue. I’m terrified that I’m going to be on my school placement and I’ll be known as that strange teacher who holds up her pants with hemp ropes like a sack of potatoes. “Do you know Sam?” “Ah yes, she’s that well-educated hobo, right?”

The problem is that British food is absolutely vile. Look, I love this country, I so very badly want to be able to smugly tell my friends back home that even the food here is fantastic, but unfortunately here in England I’m frequently confronted by plates of food that I could not, even in my vague liberal artsish way of fudging the boundaries of my knowledge, pretend to be able to identify.

Occasionally I CAN identify what I’m eating, and that’s even worse. For example, steak and kidney pie. WHY? And I don’t mean why in the curious, academic sense. I mean it in the aching religious sense, the crisis of faith sense, where you ask God from the very depths of your soul how an omnibenevolent being could possibly treat his creation so terribly in allowing man to invent steak and kidney pie. It really is The Problem of Evil. I honestly believe that there should be special death camps set aside for people who serve other people steak and kidney pies. And, being in theory a candidate for Hitler’s own death camps, I think I’m allowed to say things like that.

Sometimes the food isn’t bad, it’s just put into weird combinations. For example, I keep seeing restaurants that serve baked potatoes with tuna (instead of sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese—like a NORMAL baked potato). WHY WOULD YOU PUT TUNA IN A BAKED POTATO? What on God’s green earth could have possibly possessed you when you dreamt up that unholy union? I mean, Jesus Christ, no wonder you lost the Empire.

Then there’s the whole issue of baked beans. Apparently people here eat baked beans with their bacon and eggs in the morning. I personally don’t see what business beans have coming to breakfast. I want to look the beans right in the eye and ask, “Who the fuck invited you?”

It’s not all bad though. The sweets have been fantastic. Last week I was inducted into the world of biscuits, and I have now heard the Gospel of Trifle. I find myself running home from class each day, literally sprinting through the park and bowling over old women trudging along with their shopping who dare stand between me and cake, just so I can make it back in time for cake. (How twee and British is it that my college serves us cake every afternoon? But that’s something that deserves its own blog post.)

And also in fairness the non-British food I’ve had here has been pretty fantastic. I’m eating shawarma like I’m back in Israel, and I have so many kebab shop options near my apartment that I’ve decided that from now on I will not eat at kebab shops that cut the meat off with an electric turkey carver. No, I will insist my shawarma be cut off with one of those bigass knives that look like samurai swords. Come to think of it, I think I’ll insist on using a samurai sword for all knife functions. How fantastic would it be to spread strawberry jelly on toast with a knife so large you’d have to clear everyone out of the way beforehand? (“OH MY GOD, GET OUT OF THE WAY—SAM’S SPREADING MARGARINE!” “OH GOD NO, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” “AAAA!”) I think it’d lend a nice air of drama that is so sadly lacking at meals nowadays.

Ah yes, I think Darwin explored that idea

Today I wandered around town to acquaint myself with the churches and religious life here, being the responsible trainee RE teacher that I am. Well, if I were to issue a press release that’s what it’d say. In all honesty I was just trying to get a bit of walking in so I could justify a mid-morning snack of cookies and lunch at McDonald’s, and stopping into a couple of churches was just a reasonable afterthought.

So I stop in at one church, take a few pictures, struggle to find anyone in there who is actually praying, and keep moving along. I then turn up a huge pedestrian street, just teeming with humanity. There’s fat teenage girls pushing strollers and yelling at tourists to clear the fuck off, there’s hordes of Japanese people taking pictures of everything and seemingly oblivious to the angry fat mob, and then there are the religious people, standing out on this street with the same sort of dedication as the Titanic band.

I’m not entirely sure why they stand out there. I mean, regardless of what kind of tempting real estate in Heaven a religion offers you, I can’t imagine anyone ever gets convinced to become a Christian simply because some odd-smelling man with a bunch of slightly crumpled and moist pamphlets told them that Jesus died for their sins.

But the thing is, I always talk to them. In fact, I find it impossible NOT to. And so I guess it’s no surprise that today, as I tried to slip past a guy I had talked to about a week ago, one of these crazies called out, to my absolute horror, “Hello, Sam!” There was definitely a moment where I considered putting on a ridiculous foreign accent (“oo ees dees Sem yu spik aff?”), or running away, or simply committing ritual suicide right then and there. Because any one of those options would have been preferable to accepting the terrifying truth that I’m now on a first name basis with a street evangelist.

Well, I didn’t want to be a dick, so I walked over and said hello…but quickly excused myself, at which point he called out after me, “God bless you!” They always say that, and it always makes me want to sneeze retroactively or start singing “Gooooood Bless Aaaaameeeericaaaa…laaaaaaand thaaaaat I looooove, etc etc”.

Eventually I found my way to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ claim shanty where an overly keen Asian lady with a terrifying empty look in her eyes asked me if I agreed with the statement that science and creation are not incompatible. I honestly do believe that, so I told her so. I waited for the challenge or confirmation that universally follows anything you say to a street evangelist. And I was met with a startled silence. ………… ”Oh!” She wasn’t sure quite where to continue now that she didn’t have any convincing to do. But at the same time her body language and intense empty stare seemed to suggest that I wasn’t dismissed yet. Finally she settled on pulling out a pamphlet that discussed how science and religion are compatible, and she read extracts to me, all the while giving me sideways glances that seemed to suggest that she couldn’t believe I seriously agreed with her.

It was rather boring being read to, but things got really interesting once she put the pamphlet down and tried to ad-lib, which brutally exposed how little training these poor missionaries get. She started discussing with me the idea that people came off the backs of turtles, and how this used to be a ridiculous claim, but now science actually backs up this biblical claim.

Now, I try not to be two-faced, but sometimes when it comes to religious beliefs I make an exception. Even among some of the more fucked up creation stories—and even among doctrinally sound Jehovah’s Witnesses!—this sounds absolutely retarded. But I smiled and nodded anyway, much like how in Israel I used to smile and nod or answer with completely random words if I didn’t understand the question (“What kind of sauce would you like?” “Five.”) Like, I literally had no idea how to respond to her statement.

The first completely incomprehensible part of this conversation was the part where she claimed science thinks we rode in on the backs of turtles. This begs the question: Which branch of science are you following? Because your concept of science seems to be based on a redacted account of all the nonsensical shit I’ve said when I’ve had too much to drink, like the time I (I’m told) insisted I was a brontosaurus. If this is the case, I’d like to know—I’ve always wanted to establish my own religion, but I’ll settle for a field of science. Samology?

And secondly, but more importantly, WHAT BIBLE ARE YOU READING? I mean, I understand the Bible says a lot of really weird things, but I’m pretty sure that, no matter how you want to interpret this woman’s statement, the Bible does not talk about humans mutating from turtle backs, nor does it mention humans coming to Earth, riding in on the backs of turtles like a slow, geriatric invading army. I mean, for fuck’s sake, even the “The Message” translation doesn’t embellish the Bible that badly.

Completely confused, I wandered away from the JWs and found myself at the table hosted by the Catholics. Instead of telling me crazy tales that trump even the tale of how Jesus is edible, they silently handed me a pamphlet on why the pope is a badass and I was left to walk away in peace. God bless the Catholics.

Achoo!
GOOOOOD BLESS AAAMEEEERICAAAAAA…..LAAAAAND THAAAT---aw, fuck it.