I went in Field Service (TM) this morning!
Sort of.
After recently reading posts about people having JWs call at their door, about the extremely slow service walk (a.k.a. "Dub Dawdle") it occurred to me that I haven't seen JWs doing their "life saving ingathering work" in years. I live in a very secure building so they are not getting in here, and they have apparently decided to *NOT* contact me once per year to see if I want to get reinstated (I'll take that as my own form of "good news").
Curiosity was getting the better of me. I had so many questions:
- What would they look like?
- How would they now be dressed?
- Just how slow do they really walk?
- Would they look like big geeks? After all, I always felt like I had a "goof" sign on when I was door-knocking
- Would there be a larger than normal turn-out because it is the "Last Saturday in the Month (TM)"?
- Or would there be a small turn-out because it is a holiday weekend?
- Would I recognize anyone as neighbours in my building, making opportunity for future innocent-looking seed-planting?
- What is the current designated "donuts and coffee shop"? -- just knowing this could make for interesting future recon!
So, since I had quite literally nothing else to do, and looking for amusement, I went on a "stake out". First I drove to the nearest KH, which is *NOT* one that I ever attended when I was active, therefore less chance of being spotted.
I parked far down the street and observed with binoculars. The pep rally meeting must have been going slow, they didn't emerge until approx 10:10 (in my day, we were knocking on our first door at 10am SHARP!
And there it was, like a bizarre scene from "Twin Peaks" happening right before my (binocularly enhanced) eyes. Several middle aged sisters with really awful floral print dresses, book bags in tow. One hot-looking "younger sister" -- the type I used to drool over when I was a teen. OK, who am I kidding, I was still drooling. Of course, her skirt hem went down below her knees. She was the only "nicely" dressed person in the whole group, although I'll bet that she was wishing she was wearing a shorter skirt on such a hot day! I know I was wishing she had more leg exposed. A couple of really old couples including a short foreign looking chap in a shortsleeved dress shirt (who, upon disappearing into the white GMC van, did not exit it for the duration of my surveillance all morning). A bumbling elder looking at territory cards and handing them out. Brother M.S., wearing a purple dress shirt (I guess no one will mistake him for being a mormon, but they might mistake him for being gay "sensitive").
As these messengers with life saving work approached their cars and split up, I could not believe how slow they were moving! I mean come on already! Get in the car! Move it! There are sheep out there to be gleaned from the field!
So I decide to follow one of the vehicles, the large white GMC "Safari" van ("Excellent service vehicle, Brother Purple-Shirt! Your application to be elderized has been fast-tracked!") which I figured would be easy to see from a distance and hence follow discretely. I noticed that Bro. Purple-Shirt he had an accessory on the rear bumper: a small chrome propeller which would spin in the wind while the vehicle was in motion. Why, WHY do people do these things to their vehicles? Wasn't his choice of gaudy ground-effects, non-sensical marker-light cover-grids, and random colour splashes all over, enough to indicate a juvenile taste in vehicle decor? Was it really necessary to attach a propeller like a 6 year old would put on his bicycle handlebars? But I digress.
They were driving at or slightly below the speed limit (which means they were slower than everything else on the road, by far) and it was hard to keep a discrete distance without stopping. Their speed got slower as they got nearer to the territory. Due to traffic crossing a busy roadway, I lost them, but I had a hunch that they were close to their target territory just before I lost them, so I cruised around a bit until I found them again. BINGO! At 1024hrs I reacquired the gaudy "white whale". As I passed, I noticed it appeared to have 4 adults in the back seats (the front two seats were empty). Uh oh, Return Visits (TM), not House-About Door-to-Door (TM). Looks like I will be moving around a bit more than I planned. As I passed by, one of the occupants (the old guy with the short-sleeve dress shirt that never exited the van all morning) looked like he was either half-asleep or wilted from the heat with his head against the glass. Poor old guy. It was hard to refrain from yelling at him "You don't have to be here! Go home! Enjoy your remaining years!" but since that would have totally blown my cover and ruined my entertainment, I non-chalantly passed and took up a new surveillance position down the street.
While waiting for signs of activity, I could not help but think "Man, those passengers must be getting hot in there!" I left my engine idling and the A/C was barely able to keep up. They had a van with 4 adults and no openable windows at the passenger seats. If it had been a dog in that van, I would have probably called the Humane Society to report abuse. But who do you call when old people are voluntarily in a Sauna... a Saune without the cedar benches, that is.
Ten minutes later, the driver and passenger re-appeared and walked back to the van. Uh, did I say walked? I've been limping around all week with a torn hamstring muscle, and yet I limp faster than Bro Purple-Shirt and Sister Hottie were walking. It was truly unreal how slow they were going. Honestly, I've seen faster wedding marches. Why were they walking so slowly? Oh yeah, counting time for the report. Got it!
After making this one call, the entire group travelled several kilometres to a new location. Again I discretely followed from a distance (this was ssssoooo fun!). And again I lost them in traffic, but picked them up again.
This is where things got really pathetic. Over the course of approx the next 45-60 minutes, they did a number of return visits on this street. A couple would exit the van, disappear at a house, reappear 5 to 10 minutes later and get in the van. The van would then move -- I swear I'm not making this up! -- about 3 car lengths, and then another couple would get out and go on their R.V.! They were "driving" less than 30 meters to the next call, and of course 4 people would wait inside the van while 2 went on their R.V. Heaven forbid they should just park the van and all get out, do all their calls on the street, and all get back in the van 10 minutes later. NO NO! That is not how we deliver this life-saving message! It was excruciating how slow they were ALL walking. It was truly amazing to see how inefficient 6 people could call at just a small number of R.V.s on one street.
After this exercise in inefficiency, it was off to another location. I was starting to think that maybe by now Bro Purple-Shirt or Sister Hottie would notice the same black sedan always down the street (and occasionally passing them) So, when I followed them to the next location I was overjoyed to see several couples with book-bags in hand, doing the Dub-Dawdle. It looked like another "car group (TM)" was working "house-about(TM)". Maybe Bro Purple-Shirt wanted to meet-up and arrange coffee and donuts, after all they must have been exhausted from the 2 doors they each had to knock at in the previous hour . To prevent getting noticed by the white van, I started to follow another group. They were apparently finished "house-about(TM)" and were taking a long walk back to where they had parked the car -- a nice new silver Chrysler 300 with chrome wheels. This middle-aged sister had better car taste than Bro. Purple-Shirt-propeller-boy.
I surveilled the Chrysler on another couple of R.V.s. Tragically this car's occupants also suffered from "Dub Dawdle" disease.
Eventually, I unintentionally followed Chrysler all the way to their home. I temporarily lost them as I circled the block the opposite way when I noticed them pulling in a driveway, so I didn't see who exited or what happened. At first I thought it was just another call, but they pulled into the driveway (rather than stopping on the street in order to gain an extra 5 minutes of "dub dawdle" time) and the car was empty. I waited a couple of minutes just to be sure (I was disappointed I had missed learning the secret donuts and coffee location). I was just about to leave when someone exited the house and approached the car parked right next to mine! (Heart pounding now). I recognized him as one of the Dubs I had seen on the street when I acquired the Chrysler, although he was not a Chrysler passenger. I was thinking about following him, but he had looked right at me in my car as he approached his vehicle. I felt my cover had possibly been compromised. At that point I put my car in gear and drove off. It was a few minutes after 1200hrs.
A waste of a morning you say? Perhaps some will see it as such, but I disagree.
In fact I will make a point of doing this maybe once every ten years -- a sort of a one-per-decade cult-exit anniversary ritual.
Losing ONE Saturday morning to remind myself of the bizarre life I have escaped from is a small price to pay.
My only disappointment: I didn't learn the secret coffee&donuts location. So I just went to the nearest Tim Horton's and had lunch.
~Quotes
http://quotes.jehovahswitnesses.com/
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