1. When I was studying the elder visiting me used to go on and on about how God was going to use antimatter to clean up the world after Armageddon.
2. There was an old dude in one congregation who, when giving the Godly View of Sex and Marriage talk, said it was a good idea not to have chocolates or spices, or worcestershire sauce, before bed. "It will irritate the body openings and you will want to comfort yourself." He said brothers should sleep with their arms and hands out of the blankets so they didn't comfort themselves.
3.Elders in one congregation became obsessed about guys' haircuts in the 1990s that had what they called the "DH" look. DH stood for dickhead: it was that style of the time when the hair would be thick on top, but kind of short and shaved halfway down. It was supposedly a gay thing, meant to mimic the look of an erect penis. The elders would look for any guy who had a "definite line" in their hair, so they couldn't do magazines or microphones. "Sorry brother, that's what we call a DH haircut. You'll have to go back and get it trimmed. Get rid of the definite line."
4. In congregations in the South Island of New Zealand a circuit overseer introduced the idea of The Stone. (Maybe Sizemik can correct me here. It may have been a District Overseer). Each group doing territory would pick up a small stone and the pair of JWs seeting off at the head of the pack would leave it on the letterbox of the home as they went inside. The theory was that the pair following them would see the stone, realise someone was at that house (though they'd probably see them at the front door anyway!), pick up the stone and leave it on the next letterbox when they went down the driveway. The idea was that it avoided accidentally calling on a house minutes after someone else had done it, and if in the unlikely event that a couple would get invited inside, the others would keep moving to the next door. (Though it was far preferable that if we lost a couple because they'd been invited inside, we'd just stand around on the footpath talking until they reappeared. It was a great way to use up your time!)
The problem was, sometimes you'd miss the stone and go halfway up the street, then realise it and have to backtrack. Idiot Witnesses would be peering into people's letterboxes or newspaper delivery tube to see if they could find it. And other idiots, as they left a house, would stop at the letterbox and start rummaging around and trying to work out if the stone was still there. Householders woud stand there and watch the JWs fiddling round with their letterbox and wonder if they were trying to pinch their mail.
JWs being the institutionalised idiots they were, they insisted you HAD to have the stone when you were witnessing, even when it was obvious where people were. In their minds, the CO had once suggested it as an idea, particularly when you were doing rural territory where there were long, long driveways, but because the CO had suggested it, it was a rule.
But my wife and I hated the stone. We thought it was a dumb idea. So we'd just ignore it and go on to the next house. You'd work out who the front pair were, then overtake them and do the next house. And next thing you'd have these idiot JWs coming up behind you bellowing, "Where's the STONE? What have you done with the STONE? We're using the STONE today, brother!" And they'd get grumpy and go back down the street looking in all the letterboxes for the goddamn stone.
What a bunch of fruitcakes.
