I have nothing against Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Shakers, Quakers and the Peculiar People, but I really didn’t enjoy having them knock on my door on a cold November evening to tell me how to get in good with Him Above just as I was curling up in front of an open fire and sampling the latest of my vintner’s 10%-off-if-you-buy-a-crate-of-it.
It seemed to me that God’s business should be subject to the Shops and Offices Act, and therefore conducted only between the hours of 8 am and 5 30 pm, miracles and emergencies excepted (My goodness, that ages me: all that restrictive stuff disappeared in the Thatcher Era).
Anyway, here I am relaxed as a newt and toasting my toes, my lovely 11-year-old daughter on the carpet before me working on yet another proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem (she was like that), when the doorbell rang. Bugger!
Says I: “Sarah, just tell them we are Catholics”. We weren’t, but it saved a whole lot of discussion.
Sarah went to the door, then came back and said: “Dad, it’s a man selling double-glazing.”
“That’s ok, just tell him we are Catholics.”
And, my hand to God, that’s exactly what she did: “My dad says thank you, but we are all Catholics here.” The poor guy! My guess is he went into a serious decline after that, changed his profession and emigrated to Tristan da Cunha.
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