Okay, that's a lie. I met one girl in high school before that. Her name was Paige and her birthday came around and I'm pretty sure I wished her a happy birthday, because she got all awkward and told us she didn't celebrate her birthdays, and I was baffled. I stopped really caring about my birthdays after about 15, but it was still nice to have one day a year where people congratulated me for going another year without dying. I'll note now quickly that instead of celebrating my birthday now, I just thank my mom for going through the agony of birthing me. I'd say all presents I get go to her, but we all know that's a lie.
I also really liked cake, so the idea of this girl skipping out on the one day in the year where she could eat all the cake she wants and nobody could say anything baffled me. Then I discovered she didn't celebrate Christmas(free food), Easter(free chocolate), birthdays(free cake), Halloween(free candy), NUFFIN'.
Anyway, Paige went off to some Jehovah's Witness school or something of the like and I continued with my life. Then when I was seventeen, I had my first real experience with one, the same way they talk about it on TV. One of them actually came up to my door. Being the innocent I was at the time, I opened the door. There on our stoop was this little old lady with white curls and little half-moon spectacles and this teeny Victorian-looking outfit. She was holding her bible and her study book and her Watchtower magazines in her little wee claws and when she opened her mouth, she had the sweetest little British accent I had ever heard.
Her name was Rose. She was so old and sweet and British that even if I didn't give a shit what she was saying, I would sit there listening. Even if she was telling me the best way to slice, sear and eat newborn puppies, I would be listening intently.
Eventually Rose moved back to England, but by then I was already on the path to learning about different religions. I started going to church with one of my best friends and studying my bible and reading the articles given to me. I don't know if I would call myself 'religious', but I can appreciate and accept it while I'm looking for my own personal truth. Anyhow, I got into studying religion and Rose moved back to England and she assigned someone new to some talk to me, Sandy. Sandy was cool, but the summer Sandy was assigned to my door I moved. Just picked up and left to be in the same city as my dad. Sandy knew of some other Jehovah's Witnesses in this city I was moving to and so she said she'd set us up.
Turned out I met the lady, Nikki, all on my own and very much by accident. We studied together for about two years before I realized... I'm really lazy. And this studying and learning about something I'm not entirely passionate about thing wasn't really cranking my... crank any more. My work schedule got more erratic and eventually we just stopped seeing one another, stopped studying, all that. But to this day when I see Jehovah's Witnesses on the street, I feel a pang of guilt, like maybe they all talk behind my back about how I was once a good and attentive student and am now some horrible Godless monster.
Come to think of it, that's probably exactly what I am.
