Helpful Hints No 1

How To Deal With Jehovah’s Witnesses

July 1st 2006

Surprisingly I had a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses call on me today. I say surprisingly because I haven’t had the displeasure of their company for quite some time now (Incidentally I have never had one Jehovah’s Witness come knocking on my door, they always seem to go around in pairs or small groups – jackals, rather fittingly, hunt in a similar manner).

It isn’t that this particular branch of God’s word-spreaders isn’t active in my area, far from it, they are positively thriving; it’s just that I am no longer on their list of souls to be saved. This is because about four years ago, thoroughly fed up with their regular visits, I decided to put paid to their calls once and for all.

I chose to fight them on my own territory, their territory of course being the front doorstep, and invited them in. I knew I had made the right decision the moment they crossed my threshold, because leaving the familiarity of the front doorstep seemed to unnerve them, probably because it was the first time they had ever been invited into someone’s home. Having got them off their territory and onto mine I put my campaign into action. First I asked them to sit down on the settee and make themselves comfortable. This they did. Then I took off my trousers, stuck my right finger up my left nostril as far as it would go and stood on one leg. They looked at me, then at each other, exchanged worried frowns, then looked at me again.

Probably more worried frowns were exchanged but I don’t know for sure because at that point I enhanced my odd behaviour by tilting my head back as far as it would go and started gargling. After a few nervous coughs one of them spoke. “Are you all right?” Then I made a mistake. I said: “Yes thank you.” This was all the invitation she needed to launch into her spiel about the second coming of Christ and what I had to do if I was to give myself any chance of salvation and God knows what other rubbish they go on about.

Now having your ear bent for almost an hour by two Jehovah’s Witnesses whilst stood at your front door is one thing, but having the Scriptures quoted to you chapter and verse for almost an hour while you’re stood on one leg gargling with your finger thrust up your nose is another. A shiver still runs up my back whenever I recall the experience.  

However it turned out to be well worth it because I was never troubled by them again. Obviously they had put me down as some sort of nutter – the feeling is mutual – and told their fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses to give me a wide berth. Which they did, until today that is, when two more turned up. I can only assume they were newly converted and hadn’t been told about me. Anyway I invited them in and went through exactly the same procedure. And so did they, except that they gave me about five minutes stood on one leg gargling with my finger up my nose before enquiring whether I was all right. This time I kept my mouth firmly closed. And five minutes later they just got up and left, never, I am sure, to return.

I can’t recommend this method of ridding yourself of these pests highly enough and invite any of you out there in the wide world who are similarly troubled to use it. Don’t forget the gargling bit, which really unnerves them.

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Razzamatazz

Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things. Hi. I’m Terry Ravenscroft, I’m aged 67 and…..whoooah, come back, I’m not ready to have the lid nailed down on my coffin just yet. Anyway I’m a very young 67. (About five years ago I went to see Pulp at the Manchester Evening News Arena. I was older than everyone else by at least 35 years. The eighteen-year-old next to me asked me if I’d ever been to the venue before. I replied ‘Yes I saw George Formby here once’. She’d never heard of him.) This blog is going to be about my life and the way I see things. Before I retired I was a comedy scriptwriter for Les Dawson and Smith and Jones amongst others so there’s a sporting chance that some of the things I write will be funny. One of the reasons I’m writing this blog, although by no means the only reason, is because I have a website www.topcomedy.co.uk which I hope you will log on to occasionally. I have yet to meet anybody who doesn’t like Dear Air 2000…. My hobbies are walking, playing crown green bowls, watching football, birdwatching , cooking, and, according to The Trouble, moaning. Oh, and I have a thing about Kristen Scott Thomas. A couple of people I will be mentioning from time to time are The Trouble and Atkins Down The Road. The Trouble is my wife. I don’t call her The Trouble because it’s cockney rhyming slang for ‘wife, trouble and strife’, but because she has the habit of starting sentences, especially to me, with the words ‘The trouble with you is….’ Then goes on to complete the rest of the sentence with words like ‘you never listen when I’m talking to you’ or ‘you never see the other person’s point of view’ or some such other frivolous complaint. Atkins Down The Road is my best friend and lives, not surprisingly, down the road. I started a weblog a couple of years ago but stopped doing it to write a novel about golf called ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ If you want to read the weblog it can be found on my website, if you want to read the novel it can be found on my other website, Razzamatazz, at www.razza.fsnet.co.uk along with lots of other things.

2 thoughts on “Helpful Hints No 1”

  1. or you could just tell them you are a practicing catholic! works for the wife. me? i just tell them to fuck off, or ask them to explain what they are doing seeing as they believed the world was ending at the stroke of midnight on 31st dec 1999!

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