So this guy comes into the store the other day, true story. For those of you that don’t know, I work at a local camera store in St. Louis. The guy, Andy, tells me that he’s a preacher. Naturally, this sparked my interest because I like to talk about religion. I attempt to ask the guy a few questions about his church and his beliefs, but those were pushed aside because he was pretty interested in purchasing a new camcorder. He said he would be using the video camera to record his sermons amongst other things. We narrowed things down to a camera that was nearly twice as much as he originally stated he could afford. Although you try not to prejudge people when they walk in the door when it comes to being a salesperson, there was something that just wasn’t adding up. He stated several times that he was just on a scouting mission trying to get information. The idea here when someone says this and you realize they are not going to be the purchaser, you do what you can to pimp your customer service and tell them why it’s better to buy from you than go across either parking lot to the competition. In my opinion, the most important thing at this point is to make a connection with the potiential customer so they feel like they know you and you “get” them, thus making them want to come back and give you their business. I told him how awesome I was and that he needed to come back and see me because I would make sure he was taken care of. He thanked me for my time and shook my hand and said he just wanted to look around for a bit before he left. So that was that, I wasn’t really confident about this customer for some reason so I just hoped he would blossom into a “be back” (meaning someone who actually comes back to give you their business) and let him wander the store.
Fortunately for him, and later on myself, I tend to not let sleeping dogs lie. Andy is looking over the tripods which are displayed curiously near the front door. I can’t stand to let people look at something for too long without checking on them so I go back up to him and start talking about how we would need a tripod ultimately too, but that could be something down the road, because you have to have the camera first. We talk a little tripod talk and explain to him why he should buy the $90 dollar one (which puts us well over the original $250 he said he originally could spend. For those of you keeping score at home, the camcorder we were looking at runs $500.). Things start to get interesting then when he says he might need a heavier-duty tripod. I ask him why he would think that if he’s recording his sermon. Obviously, it doesn’t take much to steady a small camcorder in the back of the church, right? Well, Andy’s church could be anywhere he explains to me. Possibly out in a field, possibly in a building or someone’s house, possibly out in the woods by a lake (I assume for baptismal purposes, I mean the dude’s a preacher right?). The next tripod up cost $40 bucks more and I told him to think it over and if he really needs the bigger one, we’ll hook it up. We shake hands again and he’s getting ready to leave and I say that’s really cool that he goes all over the place to preach, as well as something to the effect that religion facinates me and I like to read about it. These were the magic words.
Andy says something to the effect of “Oh, really?!?”. He tells me he wants to go out to his car and get some literature for me (he’s a writer too by the way). I tell him I’ll go outside with him because it was a really nice day. We go to his car, which was an average late 90’s sedan with a ton of shit in it and a big dent along the driver’s side doors. He finds two pieces of paper and mentions that he’s looking for the one about healing (wtf? I don’t know either at this point). He asks if I’m Christian and I say maybe and I ask if he’s Christian. He looks at me kinda funny (mind you, my new friend Andy has been wearing cheap, dark sunglasses the whole time and I have yet to see his eyes). He mentions that he believes there are two gods, one that walks the earth and one in heaven. Seemed rational enough to me, I mean most christians believe something similar, albeit the one might not be walking the earth at this particular moment in time, but it seemed very God and Son of God to me (coupled with the fact that most religions believe in a similar idea where there is a god(s) in heaven and a god(s) on earth). Andy finally finds the third piece of paper, on healing, and hands them all to me and tells me to give it a read because I’ve never read anything like it in my life. Whoa dude, I’ve read a lot, I’ll be the judge of whether or not it is like anything I’ve ever read. We shake hands again and that’s that.
So it was like nothing I’ve ever read before. Let me rephrase, it was nothing like I’ve ever read seriously before. There has been jokes that kinda started how these read….
As it turns out, Andy is the Son of God. Not like you and I are are sons of God, he’s the actual Son of God (Jesus, King of Kings, Chief Cornerstone, Savior, the Rock, The Truth, The Light, The Way, etc.). No kidding, at least according to the literature he gave me. He explains the following in a paragraph on one of the sheets of paper: He was born on the day Christians recognize as Jesus’s birthday (Dec. 25th) at St. Mary’s hospital (Mary being the mother of JC). His actual mother’s name is Marilyn which is Mari, mother of Jesus with “lyn” at the end of it. His uncle is name Joseph which is the step-father of Jesus. His surname, which I’m leaving out, has something to do with being related to God. His initials are A.D. which means “after death”. You can see where this is going right?
So anyway, we go on to look at the infamous healing page and kind of skim over the front side, but the back side catches our eye. Andy states that he has already died over 1,000 deaths for us and cried over 100,000,000 tears of blood for us over 10 trillion years. He created each of us and this universe he says on the same sheet. He mentions that people are/were so scared of him and God that they’ve tried to imprison him in hospitals and give him unnatural drugs. He also has a book for sale. It costs $20, but do NOT think of it as a donation. You are paying for salvation. The book is 21 pages long and he gives you one page for free (I guess the going rate for holy pages is a buck a page).
So Andy, err…The Alpha and Omega, comes back in the following day. He brings his brother along with him (the purchaser, which I can only assume his name was James, I can’t remember for sure though, I’ll have to go back and look it up). The Lamb of God decides to go with the camcorder and the tripod and something else I can’t remember that we talked about the previous day. He asks me if I had a chance to read those papers. I told him I had. He asked me what I thought. I told him I found them very interesting. He said I should really pay for the book because it will truly set me free. I told him I might have to look into that one of these days (the politest thing I could think to say). Honestly though, I probably ought to purchase it because you KNOW there is good stuff in there!
So I’m pretty excited that I was able to meet the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Never thought that would happen at the ol’ camera store. So if any of you have some problems or need anything special, let me know. I think I’ve got an inside track. Unfortunately, if you know me there’s a pretty good chance you will go to hell when it’s all said and done, but being that I am a chosen one now, I will try to pour some spring water down to you from heaven!
Ry
ps…apparently, it’s also ok to say “mother fucker” now, because the Redeemer said that when comparing tripods, “Man, this sure is a sturdy mother fucker though, isn’t it?”