They came to campus for a week at a time, a month at a time, or even all summer. All the Ph.D.’s wearing their highwater khakis and plaid shirts, eating their fancy bagels and jabbering about Jesus. All the high school hotties invading the dorms, bouncing beach balls and terrorizing the locals while attending their motivational leadership youth groups. They all wore name tags, those laminated bits of paper with sexy fonts giving them access to their various conferences. Once here, they rambled and chanted amongst themselves and then devoured piles and piles of bagels.
Their home base was a large lecture room on the first floor of Reiss, just across from where I was working in the chemistry stockroom. Outside the room were several tables of fresh bagels. First came the theology Ph.D.’s for their annual powwow, listening to Bible experts. My co-worker and I peeked in on a session while someone was ranting, “Now, now, when we look closer at this passage, we see that it has stunning ramifications on Jesus’ ministry.” Yes, yes, quite fascinating indeed, I thought, now gimme a bagel.
We casually walked back to the lobby and started to survey the bagels when someone snapped “Excuse me!” from behind us. Turns out these Jesus freaks had hired some student goon to guard their precious bagels and massive cases of water. “I’m sorry, but those bagels are for people attending the conference,” she said, speaking more politely this time.
“Yes, we understand. My colleague and I are here for the conference,” I said while pointing to my co-worker.
“OK then, if you would please show me your nametags.”
Those damned nametags. Of course, neither of us had one. “Um, yes,” I replied, and we both fumbled through our pockets and tried to think of an excuse. She just glared at us as we stood there like idiots, fingering our empty pockets. All of a sudden I yell, “Run!”, and we each grabbed about thirty packets of butter from the tables and scrambled back to the office.
The people here for the high school convention were even worse, trying to bribe me with their bagels. They were led by a short blond woman with massive duck lips who waddled around the room leading all kinds of chants. “I can control my life!” she screamed over and over. And then they all repeated it in unison, waving and wiggling their hands.
After their screaming orgy had calmed down for a while, I ventured back to the lobby where I found them all huddled on the floor, groping several beach balls and listening to the duck lady again. Before I could grab a bagel, the duck lady accosted me. “We were just about to talk about how our last session made us feel,” she quacked.
If they didn’t pluck out my eyes, they’d probably just kidnap me. Next thing you know, they’d slap a goofy hat on my head and haul me around on some cultish tour around the country. I had to get outta there. I looked around for the closest door, grabbed a handful of bagels, and ran like hell back to the office, locking the door behind me. I had to be careful until they left. These people will do anything to make new converts, even lure you with bagels. At least they were good bagels. Amen to that.
