It’s Getting Hot In Here

Is it that obvious I’m damned to hell?

I mean, I didn’t even realize it myself. In fact, ever since I accepted Jesus as my personal savior when I was six years old, I thought I was pretty set on gold-paved roads and harps and halos and stuff. But leave it to a total holy stranger to point out that I’m going to have a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth in my afterlife.

So recently I’m walking home to my apartment from the corner store, where I had just bought some milk and Diet Coke, which evidently might as well have been a couple rocks of crack and an Indonesian child. Why? Because I’m stopped in my tracks by one of the many Hasidic Jews that live in my neighborhood. He asks me if I can put down my weapons of mass destruction and voodoo dolls and give him a hand with something.

That something was:

Flipping a switch in his house.

Wha?

Evidently since he’s Holy, he can’t flip switches on whatever Sabbath or Holy Day it was that I obviously wasn’t respecting what with my Satanic bald head, my Pagan khaki shorts and my bag of dead kittens and AIDS.

He looked like he’d been on the street waiting for a long time. I assume he was waiting for someone to come along that wasn’t Hasidic (which is about half of the people in my neighborhood) or wasn’t black (which is about the other half of people in my neighborhood). Yep, on the sliding scale of who Hasidic Jews Want In Their House, “Big, Bald White Guy” is still less scary than “Black Guy.” Who’d have known?

So, out of some feeling of compassion that is so foreign to a person like my damned self, I decided to help this Holy Man. Maybe doing so, I thought, I would find favor with God and be on my way to climbing out of my suddenly-realised sin-filled pit I’ve dug for myself.

For being so holy and, you know, filled with faith, this guy was pretty nervous and skittish. This threw me a little. Also, once I entered the apartment, I saw that he had at least three kids from where I was standing, and they all looked terrified of me. “Why did daddy let a monster into our home?” I felt they were thinking. I thought about growling, spitting venom, or letting my head do a 360° on my neck, but something not totally evil in me kept me from doing something so awesome.

He led me to a closet, opened the door and showed me two switches that were labeled “air conditioning.” He wanted me to switch them from “on” to “auto.” In fact, if my stupid-crack-smoking mind couldn’t figure it out, he actually motioned a few inches from the switches HOW to do it. I guess motioning inches from the switch isn’t a sin, but actually moving the switches, well, you’re fucked, hombre.

Just as he was motioning, another evil wave came over me. I thought about grabbing his hand and moving the switch with HIS finger. Then HE would be dammed right along with me. I would tilt my head back and cackle maniacally as his crying children watched in horror. “I’ll see your daddy in hell kids! I’ll be back for you soon! Bwwaaahaha! SWITCHES! Bwahahahahaha!” And then I’d reveal my batwings and break through the window and fly to the eye of a nearby tornado.

But instead, I just moved the switches to auto. I turned around and the dude was gone. This was already surreal to me, so I just shrugged and let myself out of the apartment. Walking down the stairs, I heard the Holy Man come chasing down the stairs after me. He offered me a single-serving bottle of kosher sweet wine. A bottle of sweet wine in exchange for the eternal damnation of my soul. Nice. Actually, I’m afraid to drink it, because if this wine is as Pure as the label says it is, it may burn my demonic self from the insides out.

“The grapes of this wine were carefully selected from the vineyard in the outskirts of Jerusalem. We hereby certify that this wine fulfills the requirement of Lamehadrin min Hamehadrin for Kiddush and Havdalah under supervision of the chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem,” says the label. Now you understand why I haven’t opened it yet.

Once I got home I got to thinking: What if this guy wasn’t so holy? What if he was way more evil than even me? I mean he did act awfully strange. His kids did look terrified. And how much of a sin is switching an AC to auto on the Sabbath, anyway? What if those switches weren’t actually hooked up to AC? What if those switches actually were doing something much more horrible? What if they were switches to a torture chamber on the other side of the wall, where his victims would be slowly pulled on a rack until their limbs tore off? What if they were switches to open some gateway to hell that was in the building like the one in the movie The Sentinel? What if they were switches to a TiVo box that was set up to record nothing but episodes of Oprah?

Well, I guess only time will tell. Until then, I might as well eat, drink and be merry. And, what the heck, maybe I’ll start with this bottle of sweet win…eeechh….uggh….can’t…breathe….burning!.....BURNING!......666……SCREEEAWWW!!!!