(Don't worry; I didn't write this on company time. :)
(And
these photos go with this story.)
So I'm having this sort of dilemma. More on that later.
I just had an excellent last couple of days. The Saturday excellence involved overpriced-and-hopefully-non-habitual Coldstone with the normal weekend bunch (Dee and Becky), plus a few irregular cast members: Jenny, her boyfriend Nick and Mark From a Long Time Ago. (Come to think about it, Jenny and Nick are becoming semi-regular weekend staples, but I literally haven't seen Mark since I was in high school.) Good times, seriously; lively, irreverent conversation, general loitering, tons of free samples, etc.
The Sunday excellence was on account of Dee's birthday. (Welcome officially to your mid-twenties, buddy.) Despite our most desperate whines and pleas, he decided that he wanted to spend the day in a park, our local Tropical Park, to be exact. Frisbees™, food and all that jazz. The group yesterday initially seemed similar to last night's but turned out not quite: the birthday boy, Becky, Jenny, Laz and Dee's brother Netpali.
Arriving at 9am-ish seemed the perfect way to secure one of those large gazeebo-type things but even for habitual oversleepers like us, it seemed a little too early and I had a vague recollection of someone once telling me that those are on a first-come-first-served basis on weekdays and reserved on weekends. Sure enough, after only having enough time to clean half of the dried-on gunk from the built-in grill and take a few ridiculous pictures, the 'park po-po' came and drove us away. Fucking pigs, damn the man, etc.
Finding a non-reserved outside spot was really a little more difficult than I'm about to make it sound, but it wasn't really that bad. Then we set up camp, waited for the others, etc. Unable to find a Frisbee™ or even a damned soccer ball for that matter, we tossed around a couple of tennis balls for a good while, which was more fun that I just made it sound. Such sustained physical activity isn't something in which I've partaken for the last many years, probably not since before most of you met me. (Even the old skool foolz among ya.) But it was nice to give a crap for a while, falling on my ass to make improbable catches and whatnot.
Next up was the issue of the food, which was such a hassle I'm not even going to start to mention it. Next time, we bring along someone who knows what they're doing with a grill. =)
After the food came the sitting-around-and-talking-about-random-shit phase of the day, which pretty much lasted until we left. Subphases of this included the harassing-Becky-with-my-digicam phase (which is pretty much whenever we're together), the Dee-jumps-over-grass-lying-Jenny phase and the surprising-return-of-the-ball-throwing-phase, only this time with increased ridiculidity, including a nearly twofold increase in punted tennis balls, dual ball-wielding, throwing balls at people not even involved (*cough*) and the like.
But the sitting around lasted for a good while, which must've bored Neptali senseless, so he spent his time (and most of the day, in general) lying on another picnic table a good thirty yards away reading manga. At one point, a couple of blonde kids walked past the rest of us and over to him. (Oh, here comes the dilemma.)
They must've been talking to him for a good while before we
really took notice. (Note that I said talking "to him," not "with him." Perhaps even talking
at him.) I know that at first, I assumed he probably knew them from school or something; being that they seemed to be around his age. But after a while of looking at him from afar, seeing him listening with a blank expression and an occasional nod, it consciously occurred to me that they were probably giving him the Jesus speech.
So I decided to go over there and be a part of the conversation. I carried with me the long-handled grill brush/scraper, rested on my shoulder. I'd occasionally bat it against my hand, nightstick-style, in a totally lighthearted way. I mean, it's not like I was
planning on beating the shit out of the kids.
I approached in a what-seems-to-be-the-problem-here fashion. They largely ignored me, continuing to focus their efforts on Nep, for example, asking him how he'd feel if he had cancer, but (the guy speaking) could take the cancer out of (Nep's) body and put it in his own. (Personally, I'd take the little bastard up on the offer, simply out of spite.) He wasn't really going anywhere with this, except implying that Jesus is the cure for cancer and that modern medicine don't know jack.
I'd occasionally interject, bordering on polite-yet-vaguely-sarcastic (this is my specialty) debating, asking for more clarification about X and for them to explain Y in further detail. They didn't seem to like questions, falling back on 'we're non-denominational so we can't be evil' and reading their little pamphlet word for word. It seemed like the kid who did most of the talking was some kind of trainee; most of his words came straight off the paper.
Very shortly after I came over, both Dee and Laz followed. I can't remember much of what happened (Laz explained his beliefs to the group, and a few questions were posed back and forth), but the lil' evangelists didn't stay very long. They walked away and Nep went back to reading his manga.
Now, my dilemma. I think I personally handled the situation pretty well (except for the implied threat of the grill scraper -- LOL -- which I really meant to be a comical device) but looking back, I'm not entirely proud of myself. I think I did well as far as myself is concerned, but may not have set a good example for Neptali. Look -- Neptali didn't want to be bothered by the fuckers. If that wasn't plain to see yesterday, it's something I should already know from past experiences as a long-time family friend, including his attitude when occasionally being forced to go to church, etc.
But I feel like that, as someone sort of brother-esque to him, I may have set a bad example for him. I think my presence didn't allow him to make up his mind, in this particular instance. While he may have seen them as an annoyance keeping him from reading, I see them as an annoyance pushing their beliefs on the weak. (Disclaimer: this isn't a statement about all people of faith, just their particular tactic of choosing the kid sitting by himself to prey upon. I mean, those fuckers walked right past our table of five potential souls in need of saving... and went and talked to the lone easy target.)
If I had it to do all over again, I'd do something like this:
- Tell them to fucking shut up for a half-second.
- Turn to Neptali and inform him that there's nothing that says that he has to sit there and listen to them with his mouth shut.
- Remind him that maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong, but he should make up his mind for himself.
- Walk away, confident that he'll do what's right for him, whatever that may be. Honest.
I don't feel too bad about the way it turned out, though. They just could have been... more ideal.
In other news, I got my first sunburn yesterday, in the last year or so.
And that was basically the day. And the weekend.
