Sunday, May 27, 2007

The Blog in which I Do Not Join a Cult


There are a number of cults I have never joined in my life, it's true.  In fact, I've never joined a cult.  I can't exactly pinpoint the reason why, however.  Perhaps I just have an aversion to ritualistic animal sacrifice?  Or maybe I formed a habit of not joining cults when I was a kid?  Whatever the reason is, it holds true today that I have not joined a cult.

The reasons this proves to be good for me are threefold.  First, I save money because I don't have to pay to reach my next level (I gain levels the normal way, by killing monsters....okay, bad D&D joke...).  Secondly, I have more free time to waste on things like television and sleeping instead of seeking "enlightenment" or whatever.  The third reason that my cult-lessness is awesome is that if I'm ever held at gunpoint in a random darkened alley (as we all are at some point during the week) and the guy says that he'll shoot me if I'm in a cult--then he wouldn't shoot me.  You know, because I'm not in a cult, nor was I ever.

I do however, work at a children's bookstore owned and managed by Scientologists.  And apparently they are heavy on recruiting, which is slightly weird.  And by "slightly weird" I mean "utterly bizarre".  I was greeted at this job with threefold rules (I like the word threefold, obviously as I've used it thrice thus far).

The first rule is that I'm not to engage a customer in conversation (so that I don't disturb their connection with the books), thus I'm not allowed to actively seek to assist them.  This works for me because I don't want to talk to them anyway, conversations with myself are much more interesting.

The second rule is that I'm not allowed to ask "how are you?" to anyone, at the risk of forcing them to look inside themselves.  Apparently that would be a travesty.  I would actually perfer that more people look inside themselves so that they can understand that they are useless, vacant shells of people and will hopefully quit talking to me, allowing me more time to converse with myself as I love doing so much.

The third rule states that I'm not allowed to insruct the customers to "have a nice day."  According to the policy I'm supposed to let them have whatever kind of day they feel like having.  And it is this policy that I blatantly defy.  No!  They shall not have crappy days, I demand that the customer's day not only be good, but rather amazing!  If they have a crappy day then it will affect not only them but anyone they interact with, thus my defiance of this particular rule is a public service.  I'm rather magnanimous that way.  More people should be like me.  More people should especially follow my lead of not joining cults, because apparently it makes you crazy and have all kinds of crazy rules.

Quote of the Day:  "I made a new game called EXTREME Patty-Cake.  The first player begins by reciting the patty-cake rhyme, and then the second player shoots the first for being annoying.  The second player wins.  Always"