Earlier today, I was waiting for a friend at a bus stop before making an important purchase. She was running late, so I’d have to miss a bus.

There was this loud obnoxious guy sitting beside me on my left, talking to the guy on my right. They apparently knew each other, but I can tell that the guy on my right clearly wasn’t interested in talking to the guy on my left – he was continually reading his finance journal and not really responding to the guy to my left – let’s call him Old Man (and let’s call the guy to my right Finance Manager).

I was listening to my iPod and I can still hear the Old Man talk. Very loudly too. He proclaimed himself to be a bible-thumping fundamentalist Christian. And true to his own proclaimation, he did try to insert God into every sentence. I rolled my eyes at every sentence he said.

When clearly the Finance Manager wasn’t responding to the Old Man, he picked up a flyer of a rock concert and shoved it at the Finance Manager’s face and pointed at the skull and crossbones tatoo on one of the rockers. He proclaimed that the skulls and crossbones were the sign of the devil, that somehow the Devil managed to start a secret organization and that its memebers were communicating with skulls and crossbones.

Hearing this absolute nonsense, I groaned and rolled my eyes very visibly. Wrong move. I immediately became his target. And the absolutely irritating thing about these people is that they start acting like your friend. Here’s how our conversation went:

Old Man: So, have I met you before? Gym? Same class as me?

Me: I doubt so. I wouldn’t want to meet you.

Old Man: Oh you speak good english. How long have you been in Australia

Me: For me to know and for you to never find out.

Old Man: I take ancient history [or something to that]. Do you take history?

Me: Unfortunately not.

Old Man: Yep, unfortunate indeed. Have you heard of the old saying that a man who doesn’t learn from history is doomed to repeat his mistakes?

Me: Well, now I count myself fortunate not to have taken any history class with you in it.

Old Man: (chuckles) Come now, you must be in the same class as me. I’ve seen you before. I feel like I know you.

Me: (took out earphones) Well, that is correct. I’ve known you all your life, John [it was a random name pulled out from nowhere]

Old Man: Ahah! So you DO know me.

Me: (doing a mental facepalm). Yes. I know you. I’ve been with you through your ups and downs… Every night you make a call out to me, and I hear them. But I still am only going to watch. All your sins, and your works, I know them by heart. I am judging you John. As you speak.

Old Man: You can’t be insinuating that. That’s blaphesmy.

Me: Really? I am. Let me ask you a question, since you know your bible so well. What if God took a form – say me, and came down to test you. How would you know that?

Old Man: God wouldn’t do that.

Me: Really? It seems, John, that you are wiser than God itself, in all its infinite wisdom. Bravo bravo.

Old Man: God wouldn’t do that.

Me: How do you know?

Old Man: It was stated in the bible, in Thessalonians – that the devil will create illusion, present a reality that is not, and confuse the true believers.

Me: So in any case that God came down and have this chat with you right now, you’d paint God as the devil?

Old Man: It’s not God that will do that, it’s the devil.

Me: (roll eyes) Please, don’t be so arrogant to even think you know what something unimaginable to your pathetic human intelligence would do. Something you cannot even begin to understand, and you make decisions in his or her stead?

Old Man: It’s stated in the bible.

Me: Yeah, sure. What if the devil was the one who commissioned the bible in God’s name? Your bus is here.

Old Man: Aren’t you coming?

Me: Nope. I’m taking the next one. Can’t be arsed sitting next to a person like you. You’re gonna try convert me anyways, so, thanks but no thanks.

And then I went ahead and made one of the most important purchases this semester. I don’t feel sorry for this person. Now don’t get me wrong, as much as I dislike organized religions, I still acknowledge the fact that organized religion do have some of the teachings which would benefit humans – teachings on morals and ethics, for example – but an unfortunate product of organized religions is people like that old man.

And he got on my nerves. Too bad for him

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