Adrift with 80 Jehovah's Witnesses

The Gingehovah got married today. After sending me the original invitation, I think she may have picked up my general aversion to 1. big social events with random people whom I'm never going to see again and more particularly 1.(b) Weddings, and ended up offering to pay me hard cash to turn up. At this stage I agreed, as it pays better than teaching English, and in return entertained the guests musically for two hours in the afternoon and another two in the evening.

Stuff that. Buy a digger!

I left the first half of the wedding reception at about 3ish I suppose, ambled along the river with fellow guests and old uni chums Brogh and Tamtam, catching up on however many months of life, and then popped home to have a break and get a little work done before having to return. Climbed the stairs up to my apartment. This is normal. Put the key in the lock and opened the door. This is normal. Was greeted by a large aerosol can standing in the middle of the floor spewing gas that smelt strongly of solvent.

This is not normal.

A man appeared on the stairs. Oh, don't go in, he said. We're fumigating it. Killing the flies.

Mentally noting that going to so much trouble for the two small flies that I remember buzzing around my window when I left this morning was possibly the greatest and most literal example of overkill I had seen this year, I asked the man whether anyone had considered warning me about this turn of events, or indeed consulting me on when would be a good time to do it. I politely registered my irritation with the hotel manager, informing him that I now had four virtually useless hours as I couldn't even use my phone to call someone up and say "hey, it's friday afternoon, my room's being fumigated, fancy going to the flicks?" Apparently there had been an insect issue in room 41, and they'd taken the liberty of making preventative measures in my room on the same floor. I tried to be grateful but found it too much effort.

Ok, so you look in the mirror one morning, your hair is dirty and needs a comb. At what point do you suddenly step back and think, "ah, yes, perhaps I need God's guidance on this"?

But, being the resourceful person you know and love*, I bought some food and read a newspaper, before venting my frustration on the drum kit, which isn't mine, but no-one has stopped me playing it yet. Then left a note to tell the evening receptionist to please open my window when the fumigating dude had left so that the gas had a chance to escape before I came home wanting to sleep. (I enjoy my sleep, but I'd also quite like to wake up again tomorrow and watch the England match).

*Product may differ slightly from illustration.

The time went relatively quickly and I returned to the boat which the Gingehovah had hired out for the two receptions. The evening version was a slimmed-down affair, in the sense that there were 80 people instead of 150, although fattened-up, in the sense that it involved a three-course meal. I hid behind the piano for a fair amount of time, but then decided to step into the arena and stylishly gatecrashed the head table. Gotta love those Witnesses - an Elder had been talking to poor Tamtam at the first reception, and when she made the mistake of mentioning she'd been to a couple of "meetings" with the Gingehovah, he suddenly broke into a jovial "Yes, well, you know, we're just normal people really". Mmm, I thought. Who was the last normal person I met who felt the need to tell people they were normal within ten seconds of meeting? Oh. "Witnessing's really fab you know (I paraphrase), you can go wherever you like in the world, and just pop into a Kingdom Hall, and you've got friends. And not just that, but you know you can trust them." Yes, well, imagine a tiger. He can go anywhere in the world, find a zoo, go into a cage, and find other tigers. But! Away from other animals, how does he eat? He cannot hunt like a tiger in the wild. Without help from the zoo keeper, he dies! This is an absolutely terrible analogy.

Wait - where's the "No!" button?

So, abundant joy was mine when, at the second half (Tamtam and Brogh not invited; Timber = virtually the only non-witness on the boat), I overheard aforementioned Elder speaking to Gingehovah about how That Young Lady Who Was Here Earlier seemed to be "very interested in The Truth."

Brilliant.

I'm trying to look at the naked chick on the front cover of this nice man's magazine, and all I'm seeing is a blur. Hell, it's that pornography distortion thing again... call the doctor!

More fun is available at www.watchtower.org, which is where today's images are taken from.

Got home tonight. Opened door. Had they opened the window to aereate the room for me? Two guesses. No, one guess. Come on. Clue: I'm still up at 01.40 writing my blog. What could possibly be the answer?