This is the longest blog I've ever written here.

Things you shouldn't do

I was the youngest of many children, the oldest over a decade older than myself. My parents had had it with raising kids by the time I was born, so I ended up being lumped in with my oldest sibling. I was treated just the same, being expected to already know how to take care of myself and how to behave around others. I can't say that had much of a negative effect on me, but I do think even now I'm lacking just a bit in knowledge of what is and isn't okay to do.

To make things more clear, on occasion I like to create entertainment for myself. When nothing exciting is going on I make things exciting; talking to someone, making something, making small jokes, etc. Those things usually take the boredom away. The problem though, arising from my somewhat limited knowledge of how to properly behave and of how people will feel about what I do around them, from time to time things go bad. I'll give an example.

I was out late one night, walking home from a day of shopping in Downtown, when a young boy of maybe 12 years walked up to me. He asked me, and I'll say now that some of you may find this a bit inappropriate, if I wanted to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and saviour.

Before I go on I want to make it absolutely clear that I mean no offense to anyone. I have nothing against these people, and none of this is meant to be representative of their group. This is simply one incident with one person.

Anyway, he asked me the Christ thing. I've noticed when people get asked that on the street they tend to treat the person who posed the question with much of the same attitude they treat the mentally unstable. That's to say they try to humor them and just say yes so as to get away as soon as possible. That strikes me as rude and disrespectful, so I didn't do that. Instead I opted to stop and take time to talk to this person in as positive and cheerful an attitude as possible. Plus, I was bored, so I wanted to entertain myself with something I'd made earlier.

Here's where I may have been wrong in the action I elected to take; I smiled and very plainly said "No."

Some people stopped to watch.

I guess the boy was surprised because he started to give the answer he'd prepared for people who said yes, then stammerred a little and asked "Wait, what? Why not?"

I've mentioned this before in my past blogs; I like to make people laugh. You see, earlier that day while shopping I happened to buy a movie with Nicholas Cage on the cover. This is integral to the story.

I said to the boy that I couldn't accept Jesus Christ as my lord an saviour because I already had so many lords and saviours. This is when the man he'd come with walked up and asked what was happening. I very calmy explained, mentioning that I felt it made no sense for me to believe in his god.

I said there was nothing around to clearly indicate to me that his god was real and that mine weren't. He said it wasn't a question of proof but rather faith, going a step further by saying my gods have as little proof of their existence to him as his does to me.

This is where those things I mentioned before come into play. The movie, cheerful attitude, and liking to make people laugh, that is. A few more people were watching by then.

I stopped him, saying that it wasn't true at all. I said "Not true, one of my gods is Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage very clearly does exist, there's proof he's real."

I then pulled out the movie with Nicholas Cage on the cover, showed him, and while hugging it I chanted "Nicholas Cage, Nicholas Cage, N. C., Nc, Unce, unce, unce"

I thought he'd find that funny, I was trying to be cheerful by making him laugh with little joke. He didn't seem to get the joke though. If anything, he was just as confused as the crowd around us.

That's when he started saying he was mistaken, agreeing that I was right and that he had to go now. I noticed though that he'd taken on that same tone of voice I mentioned earlier, the tone people use with the mentally unstable. This struck me as incredibly rude. Here I was, taking time out of my busy day to talk to him about religion and even share a joke when everyone else around would only humor him, and he treats me like a crazy person.

What kind of person does that? Is he such an uncivilized animal? Did have as little respect as the animal I was dressed as?

By the way, I was in a bear costume the whole time. That's what I'd gone Downtown to take care of. I bought materials for a costume and fashioned it into a bear suit I needed for a school play I was helping my niece with. I don't know if that might have anything to do with the incident on the whole, but still, they were very rude to me.

I guess ultimately what I want to get across here is that people should be better than this man. I realize I don't know much about appropriate behavior, but I do know this man was out of line. Please be more respectful than him.