Le maudit Mo D.

The Girl Least Likely To

Today on campus, a nationally-recognized messianic cult was recruiting tender, impressionable coeds via their large red bus. I walked past said bus on my lunch break, and their hippie peacenikness stunk of cult, so I Googled them and sure enough, they are a cult. Any organization that commands you to turn over all your money and cut off contact with your family is a cult. This operation was totally the Movementarians. All the way.

I got to thinking, being an atheist makes you somewhat ironclad against the lure of the cult. Convince me to give them all my money so that I will get to sit on Jesus's lap and be his favorite? Clearly this is a maneuver to weaken me and make it less likely that I'd be able to leave. Cut off contact with my family? So that when I tell them about the forced manual labor, sex slavery, and ritual beatings, they won't call the cops? Some of their long-haired members approached me and I told them to their faces that I don't join cults. And their response was a cheerful, "Great!" HEY, I JUST CALLED YOU A CULT MEMBER! Brainwashed, fer shure.

It is hard to convince me of the promise of a life better than the one I already have, especially if it involves dying before I can get there. I realize they were there to prey on hopeless, lonely, confused college students, and hence their recruiting at UT. Indeed, most cults do target the college population.

If you're reading this: DO NOT JOIN A CULT OR ANY RELIGIOUS GROUP THAT ENCOURAGES YOU TO QUIT SCHOOL TO LIVE ON A COMMUNE IN ANOTHER STATE TO MANUFACTURE SOAP AND MEMORIZE SCRIPTURE AND/OR HAS A CHARISMATIC LEADER THAT CLAIMS TO DIRECTLY SPEAK TO GOD AND/OR JESUS. Because they just want to take your money and force you to not talk to your family.

Personally, I am wary of any group that does not have strict standards for membership. Which is why I am suspicious of the modern-day credit industry.

In other news...

Now that I'm thirty, I feel freer than ever to write cranky, critical letters to corporations about how ass their stores and products are. I recently wrote a note to the corporate headquarters of a chain Tex-Mex fast service restaurant wherein I chided their policy of forcing their low-paying service drones to participate in a call-and-response greeting system that I found demeaning, depressing, and unnerving. Indeed, my skin crawled when the counter staff, mostly college kids and Mexicans for whom English is a second language, half-assed their way through the dreary call-and-response script. It would also have creeped me out if it had been a full-voice, enthusiastic performance, because they're just there to make a living, not to entertain me or give me a false sense of belonging or whatever. Clearly, this is a transaction situation wherein they prepare a burrito and I give them money and then I go away. I don't need any fancy performance bullshit. It made my skin crawl.

But, now that I'm thirty, I'll be sending off cranky letters all the time. When I hit forty, I'll be telephoning managers, and at fifty, demaning to speak to them in person! That is, if chain businesses still have in-the-flesh managerial staff in twenty years.

ROBOTS RULE THE EARTH 2026!

Posted by Zerd at April 19, 2006 06:28 PM