Praying In Church And Other Bizarre And Evil Behaviors.

I was watching a show on A&E the other night. It’s a show I usually enjoy watching called A Haunting or something similar (the exact name escapes me). Each episode features a “haunting” involving a family plagued by unknown spirits. Some spirits are benign and friendly and some are evil and threatening. It’s usually interesting and somewhat educational and I’ve always found it to be open-minded and informational. But, this particular episode surrounded a single mother and her son who were being visited by evil, demonic forces and the devastating ways their lives had been affected. The ensuing story was ridiculous and laughable.

The story was told in flashbacks because it had supposedly occurred in the 1960’s. According to the re-enactment, the woman had “always” been interested and somewhat obsessed with the Occult, Wicca and Witchcraft, much to the dismay of her husband at the time (apparently her interest in the occult had precipitated their eventual divorce). She read “Witchy” books and (gasp) set up an Altar. Her son was mortified with her evil behavior and eventually the two had become estranged. Suddenly, evil beings began visiting this poor, misguided heathen and her life became out of control. By this time her son had left for college and was quite relieved to be free of his devil-worshipping mother. In fact, during a rare visit he was forced to take down a picture of the devil his mother had hung over his bed. His mother was now dressing in all black and even wore a pentagram necklace. What was a good Christian son to do? And so on the story went in the same idiotic way. Eventually, the woman saw the error of her ways. Mother and son blessed the house, said a few prayers and all was well with the world again.

The whole story left me shaking my head and wondering if it had been written by Jerry Falwell. Had I stumbled upon an episode of the 700 Club by mistake? The entire episode was ridiculous. Wicca is a real and recognized religion. There are millions of practicing Wiccans all over the world. There is absolutely no devil worship involved. Wiccans don’t even believe in heaven, hell or the devil. The devil is a Christian myth and nothing more.

Now, I ask you this: Is there a difference between setting up an Altar in one’s home to meditate and going to a building, kneeling, placing hands together, looking skyward and saying prayers? Why isn’t sitting, standing and kneeling several times in one hour considered odd behavior? How about kneeling at a church altar and lighting candles to pray for guidance and healing? What about partaking in wine (juice) and wafers as a way to show reverence to a deity? No one shakes their head and questions these behaviors. No one thinks there are evil consequences to prayer and candle lighting ceremonies. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things. Prayers are answered. “Miracles” do happen.

There is no difference between Wicca and Christianity except that they are different ways to obtain the same results. Misinformed television shows and movies only serve to perpetuate the ignorance and intolerance of the Wiccan religion. I know stories like these sell tickets and commercialized products, but come on people, enough with the “you’ll go to hell if you practice Wicca and Witchcraft”. Freedom and tolerance of religion means freedom and tolerance of ALL religions. Stop giving Wicca a bad rap. 

Please Don’t Shit On Me Because I Work At WalMart

What makes some people think it’s okay to treat customer service workers with little or no respect? I work at the customer service desk at my local WalMart. I have to say, however, that for the most part people are pleasant and polite. But every so often you get an abusive and rude customer who thinks it’s okay to treat you like shit. I had just such an experience this past weekend.

It’s WalMart’s policy to issue a store credit to customers returning merchandise without a receipt. It is also their policy to refund the most current price of an item when a customer doesn’t have a receipt. This, to me, makes perfect sense. Without a receipt, there’s no way to verify the amount the customer actually paid for the item. We have no way of knowing if the item was purchased at a sale price or not.  We have no way of knowing when the item was even purchased.

So, having said all this, a woman came to the customer service desk this past Sunday to return two pairs of jeans. She claimed they were Christmas presents and she didn’t have the receipt. Fine. No problem. That is until they rang up lower than the original price. She became indignant and insisted she receive the price that was on the tag. I attempted to explain that, without a receipt, we could not be sure if the jeans had been on sale at the time of purchase and it was WalMart’s policy to refund the current price. Well, she told me that if she wasn’t refunded the price on the tag she’d get , “all pyscho bitch” on me. Uh-oh. I had a fruitcake on my hands. And a violent fruitcake. I had no idea what her definition of “psycho bitch” was but I knew for damn sure I wasn’t getting  paid enough to find out. I immediately suggested she speak to a manager and promptly called one over. He explained the same WalMart policy and she grabbed the offending jeans and said she intended to write to the local newspaper to report the unfair policy WalMart had inflicted upon her. Yeah right nutcase. The paper’s really gonna report that. I highly doubted she knew how to read and/or write but whatever. As long as she got out of my face.

She leaned over the counter and said to me, “gimme a bag, bitch”. The manager said “excuse me?!” and she just stared at the both of us. Real classy chick. She didn’t look too bright. In fact, she looked like a low-class, ignorant, dirtbag so I wasn’t too offended by the remark when considering where it came from. My Mom has a saying, “take it from where it comes”. In this case I wasn’t about to get upset by a comment made by an ignorant moron so I put her stupid jeans (that were probably too small for her and that was the reason for the return) and handed them to her. The other customers looked amused, shocked and disgusted by the display.

So, what makes someone think it’s okay to call people they don’t even know a foul name? Did she know me personally? Was I a bitch simply because I was following WalMart’s policy? All I know is she’s damn lucky I wasn’t a waitress and she was an abusive customer or she’d be getting my special sauce. How would I have reacted if this scenerio had played out in the streets? Probably quite differently. Would I have gotten my ass kicked? Maybe, maybe not, but I know for damn sure I wouldn’t have let her get away with calling me a bitch.