Image reads: “we’re flying electric helicopters on Mars yet you can’t turn on your clothes dryer in Texas. That’s because scientists are in charge of Mars, and Republicans are in charge of Texas”
Growing up, I was Mormon (though I no longer am), and I served my mission in Russia. I was serving in a little town outside Moscow called Lobyna (meaning “the place of the skull”), and it was mid-winter and my companion (that’s what the other missionary in a pair is called) and I were sign-boarding, handing out free Books of Mormon. I noticed that there was a man who had walked by our station a couple of times, dressed kinda bedraggled – I noticed him because he wasn’t wearing any shoes – who seemed interested in talking but shy about starting a conversation. I offered him a copy of the book, and struck up a reasonably pleasant conversation that resulted in my inviting him to take the discussions by meeting with us in the church building.
Our companionship lived on the second floor of the church building, which was a converted dacha (a Russian summer home), and then the first floor and half of the second floor was reserved for church activities. We scheduled our meeting with this investigator (I don’t remember his name, it’s been a few years) to be right after morning study, so we didn’t have to leave the house and come back.
Come the day of, and I go downstairs to the kitchen to make breakfast, and lo and behold, our new investigator is sitting in the middle of the biggest room (the chapel/former living room) on a folding chair just waiting. I called down my companion, and we did our discussion earlier than expected, which was fine, and then did morning study afterwards. I don’t remember a lot of that first meeting, other than he seemed like a reasonable Russian Orthodox member who was chatting with American missionaries. What I do remember is that when I went to let the investigator out, I had to unbolt both front doors to do it.
After he’d left, I asked my companion if next time he’d please tell me when he lets people into our house, to which he replied that he didn’t let the investigator in, he just assumed I’d done it. This was when I started to get concerned. You see, Russian doors aren’t like American doors. Generally speaking, there are two doors – a wooden door with a lock like I’m used to, and then a “fire door”, which is like an inch and a half thick steel with five deadbolts into the frame (three into the wall, and one into each of the floor and ceiling). This isn’t a “tee-hee” kinda situation to open up the door to get in, you would have to do major structural damage to enter through a door. And it was mid-winter (like -30 - -40 degrees mid-winter), so it wasn’t like we forgot and left a window open or something. We resolved to be extra certain to lock up the house next time.
Which is why it was so surprising when, a few days later, he was sitting in the middle of the chapel-living-room waiting for our appointment an hour early again. We had checked all the bolts and windows and everything, yet there he was. And this time, the discussion went thoroughly off the rails. He was telling us about how the spirits of the dead congregate behind a comet that circles the solar system, and that they’re awaiting the confluence of some celestial bodies and would get free and so on. We wrapped up the conversation and did not invite him back, and never saw him again.
And sure as shootin’, when we checked the doors and windows when he left, they were all still locked and barred. It’s been 15 years and I still don’t know how he got into our house.
Image is captioned: “The dinosaurs didn’t “rule the Earth”, they were just alive. Stop giving them credit for administrative skills they almost certainly did not have.”...
The article is a bit Washington-centric, but The Communities Over Highways Campaign the article is about is not – I just couldn’t find a source with a broader perspective. You can find the campaign’s site here: americawalks.org/the-communities-over-highways-ca…
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Image reads: “we’re flying electric helicopters on Mars yet you can’t turn on your clothes dryer in Texas. That’s because scientists are in charge of Mars, and Republicans are in charge of Texas”
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Image is captioned: “The dinosaurs didn’t “rule the Earth”, they were just alive. Stop giving them credit for administrative skills they almost certainly did not have.”...
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The article is a bit Washington-centric, but The Communities Over Highways Campaign the article is about is not – I just couldn’t find a source with a broader perspective. You can find the campaign’s site here: americawalks.org/the-communities-over-highways-ca…