157. Cults

C.W. is threatening to leave me of all things. That didn’t exactly sound right now, did it? What he said was that he wanted to get married and would have to move away. He looked like a marriage prospect. Polo shirt, shorts, walking shoes and a haircut that must have cost more than my last trip to the grocery.

“First,” I said. “You are an alien. How can you get married?”

“Do I look like an alien?”

He had me there. “No, you would fit right in most places.” It was true. He was a model for the perfect yuppie.

“That’s what’s important,” he said. I must have had a questioning look. “Fitting in.”

“Don’t you fit in here?”

“Oh please,” he said, looking around. His eyes rested on a disassembled toaster oven on a pad of newspapers covering the kitchen floor.

“My wife has been working on it,” I said.

“For the last three months?”

“What is eating you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just want to get married and she insists on living where everyone is just like us.”

“Aliens?”

“Perfect specimen.”

“As in?”

“You know … white, tall, and handsome.”

“Everyone?”

“We would allow some mascots.”

“What would you do for fun?”

“We would go to this church where people like us go. There’s a whole chain of them.”

A chain of churches?”

“Full of people like us.”

“White, tall, and handsome?”

“Maybe one other.”

“One other?”

He looked hurt, “We believe in diversity,” he said.

“So who is this person you want to marry?”

“Someone I met on the Intenet.”

“And she lives …?”

“In this perfect city.”

“And goes to this perfect church?”

“Yes, and the children there all go to perfect schools.”

“And what does ‘perfect school’ mean?”

“Well, uh … you know … just perfect.”

“You want to move to a ‘white-flight’ city?”

“She doesn’t call it that.”

“What does she call it?”

“A community of choice.”

“Because one chooses to be …?”

“Like everyone else.”

“So what are you going to do with your collection of Whoopee Cushions?”

He looked at the floor. “Well, Mrs. Big Dope has always wanted them.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“How about giving them to your friend Wayne?”

“He wouldn’t live a week.”

“I dunno then.”

“Speaking of Wayne, what will you do with the ‘Beer - Helping White Guys Dance Since 1842’ poster he gave you?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “I can’t take it there?”

“Hardly. And what about those geese on the pond that you have trained to march in unison and quack ‘Gooseland, Gooseland, Uber Alles?’”

“Oh gee,” he said.

“They won’t let you in an apartment with those.”

“Oh,” he said, brightening. “No apartment. You have to loan us money to buy a house. They don’t allow apartments.”

“They don’t allow apartments there?”

“No, children who live in apartments drag down the schools’ test scores.”



Marching to the beat of a different drummer is bound
to keep you out of step with your neighbors. Just look
at Big Dope. - C.W.

“This sounds like a cult to me.”

“A what?”

Before I could answer, we were interrupted by loud voice from the back of the house. “You two have one second to get these geese out of here!”

We raced toward the sound of a quacking that sounded suspiciously like the tune of “The Horst Wessel Song.”

“You would leave all this?” I said as the feathers began to fly.

“In a heartbeat.”