The Farting Evangelist

Here is the funny story I promised earlier...

When I arrived back at my car after my walk out to Cape Kidnappers, I stopped to stretch a bit and enjoy the quiet lapping of the ocean waves and the pink afterglow of teh sunset. As I was balancing against my car, looking out to sea and stretching my left quad, a woman came walking up the road and asked if I was contemplating a walk back out to the Cape. "Oh no. I don't think my legs could take it. I'm just stretching them out." "Oh. you need to get some salts in you. That'll help. Have you been drinking enough water?" Oh cool, I thought, a fellow athlete. She was quite a nice, friendly woman, but a bit, well, unique. She started warning me about going anywhere by myself and how she didn't want to put fear into me, but its just not safe as a woman alone and I had to be careful, etc. etc.... yeah, yeah, yeah. I was up for a little chat, but htis was starting to drag at this point. I'd just finished a 5 hour walk, it was approaching 9pm and I hadn't yet had my dinner. I tried to hurry her along by taking out my car keys as a little hint. Well, she sort of took it, but not quite as I'd hoped. She moved along to "I just want to leave you with one last thing" and as I looked at her expectantly to see what this parting piece of advice might be, (I'd already been told not to travel alone several times, especially in the mountains, to take the back roads to Wellington and to be careful as a foreign woman, again going back to the not travelling alone theme), she launched into "I just want to let you know that Jesus loves you and is always watching over you and if you let him into your life..." Oh good lord! And I thought it couldn't get any worse! All I wanted was my dinner and a nice, cold beer! She went on like this for quite a while as I nodded and smiled and planned how to get out of this without appearing terribly rude, afterall, she WAS a nice woman. Now, I am fascinated with the whole idea of religions and what brings people hope and courage in their beliefs. Its wonderful that these sources are so diverse and I could totally appreciate the difference that belief in Jesus as the savior had made in this womans's life, but I am quite happy with my spiritual path, and plus, I wanted my dinner! Well, as she was going on, it may have been in the part about how exactly to go about asking Jesus into my life, she let out this BIG fart. She seemed a bit thrown by it for a second, giving me hope, but then just excused herself and went on with her spiel. I know I am 25 years old and that farting is perfectly natural. Everybody farts, myself included, but I still think farting is really freakin' hilarious. And this one was particularly funny. I am proud to say that I somehow managed not to laugh, although my severe facial twitching, resulting from my attempts to subdue the urge, may have given me away despite my suppresion of actual laughter. She continued on for even LONGER after that until I finally put my foot down (nicely) and told her thatI needed to go eat my dinner now that it was past 9:00 and it was fully dark. And let me just tell you, that beer was excellent, and it may have been my 3rd night running of pasta with sundried tomato sauce and stirfried vegetables, but dang, they tasted good! And a salad to boot! I think by the time I got home I was so ravenous that I could nearly have eaten my entire food supply. I must admit though, that even after all the lady's talk, it still didn't occur to me to say grace before digging in.