Seat 27A
Boarding the Plight
Ladies and gentlemen, the Captain has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign and you may now move about the cabin, but as a safety precaution please keep your seatbelt securely fastened while seated. You may now turn on your electronic devices such as calculators, CD players, and laptop computers.
Yippie! The green light. I dug my laptop out of my briefcase, fired it up, and began to type…
It’s Thursday, 7 September 2006, 5:46 PM (E.S.T.) to be exact, and I’m cruising at 30,000 somewhere over Texas. (Just for the record, I don’t see god up here either.) Anyway, Southwest flight 529 from Fort Lauderdale to Dallas is rather uneventful – except for the bible-punching moron sitting next to me. Well, we’re actually one empty seat apart which is good because if he were any closer I’d vomit.
So I’m on the aisle and Christ’s buddy is sitting in the window seat, and he just placed his bible between us, face up for all to see – or at least for me to see. And it’s upside down to him (right side up to me) so I can read the title clearly:
THE BIBLE
GOD’S HOLY WORD
Each time I glance to my left the book has miraculously inched its way closer. Hmmm. Could it be the omnipotent finger of god nudging it toward me? Of course not. This guy was looking for a conversation opener. I spent 8 years traveling for work and I’ve seen it a hundred times. It’s the mid-flight conversion tactic. A travel classic!
I smell a desperate attack about to commence where the prize is another soul won over for Christ. Fine. I’m bored. I’m a captive audience. I’ll play along.
Hey, wait. I have an idea. Cache files! Yes! Internet cache files! I haven’t cleared those bastards off my laptop in ages, so there must be some trace of GodlessBastard.com sitting in my temporary internet files folder. (For those of you who don’t know, even without an internet connection you can navigate to previously viewed web pages if you set your browser to work off-line.)
This godless bastard is about to launch a pre-emptive rhetoric attack.
Master Baiter
My new evangelical friend was on the lookout for a reaction, so I handed him one on a silver platter. I made a point of glancing at his book of myths whenever he looked in my direction. Cool. The moron smelled some interest. (Christians are so easy to manipulate, ain’t they?)
Then, as if inspired by divine revelation, I feverishly hammered at my laptop keyboard. What I was actually doing was writing this rant, but he was probably thinking, “Hmmm. What is this about? What exactly is this ugly bastard typing on that thing?”
After several minutes of alternatively glancing at his bible and then typing frantically, I started to slowly rotate my laptop screen counter-clockwise so that he could see…
5 degrees…10 degrees…15 degrees… Slowly he craned his neck to snoop…
“More, you a-hole! Turn it just a little bit…uh…um…What the fu…? Godless Bastard?”
His eyes were fixed on that screen as I led him through the silent tour of my site.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him reach out and pull his book of fairy tales back to its starting position up against his leg. He pulled it close and tapped it a few times as if to say, “Fear not, my friend. We’ll get the next one.” Happily, he retreated and kept his mouth shut.
As the plane started its descent over Dallas, the saved one turned to watch the city below through his window. No doubt he was still stewing in the missed opportunity to save another soul.
The Coup de Grace
Thinking quickly, I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled down the following rather cryptic URL:
The link above was a re-direct to GodlessBastard.com. In May 2009 this free re-direct service (provided by Bravenet.com) was suspended, so the link is now dead.
As my bible-punching friend peered out his window to behold god’s amazing creation below, I stuck my note under the cover of his bible. Seemed like a fitting place to put it. With any luck he eventually read this very rant.
Unlike your average Christian, I provide at least some evidence to back up my claims. Sorry about the crappy quality of the image, but I managed to snag a quick shot with my cell phone camera while he was looking out the window:
Enjoy your stay in delusion or wherever your final destination may be.