Someone7
11-20-00, 06:16 PM
I’m not really sure how to word this post, and I’m still not exactly sure what it is I want to get across to the people who will read it as I write this, but I know I must write it anyway, to get it off my chest.
For one thing, I’m a teenager. I never usually try to go out of my way to tell people my age, because it usually only hinders people accepting what I have to say, especially in places for debate of this sort. I am sixteen, male, and a dropout (another thing I don’t go out of my way to mention). I have no real life, no girlfriend, no license, no job, etc, etc. I sit at my computer most of the day, talking to various people, about various things. Of course this information implies certain negative qualities about my real life character, some of those implications are probably correct. I don’t go to great lengths to cover this up, indeed, I will admit I am a dropout if asked why I am online all the time, and I will admit my age, if asked in a sincere interest to get to know me better. Though this is a time that I feel I should give this information, so as you can better understand what I experienced today at the book store.
I woke up at roughly 5:30 PM EST yesterday, and have been up since then. I spent that evening, and all night, and most of the morning, talking to people in IRC, AIM, and an online RPG called EverQuest. When my sister woke up, I asked her if she would take me to the bookstore in the mall, she agreed, she already had plans on meeting our parents for lunch.
Before I continue, I’ll tell you why I wanted to go to the bookstore. It all started because of a thread in this forum, mentioning the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Tiassa is very articulate person, and her posts have almost fascinated me. I have heard of this book before, and when I read that post, I knew I would probably be buying the book very soon. In about a week, I bought the novel, and took it to a friend’s house to read it (wouldn’t ya know, he already bought the book himself…). I thought it was the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in a long time, since it has been awhile since I read a novel. Anyway, after reading it, I was going to buy the other books, but learned that they are all cramped into one book called The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. So, when I got back home, I was going to buy it and take back the paperback I purchased, but my dad cleaned my room while I was gone, and threw away the receipt. I was mildly irritated, but it wasn’t going to stop me from buying the entire series anyway. I put going to the mall off for awhile, because I had recently started playing EverQuest, but I got around to it today.
Back to the present, we went to lunch at Hooters. I highly recommend not going to that restaurant, the food is not that great, and the prices are way too high. Waitresses walking around in short shorts and cutoff tank tops isn’t worth the high prices, to say the least. We ended up paying 60$ for the meal, when we could have ate at a fast food place for around 20$. Since I didn’t actually pay anything, it wasn’t the price that made me wish I didn’t go there, it was the extreme gas I had after eating there. When we were walking out of that place, I was farting everywhere every 2 minutes. As time passed, dropping my dad back off at work, it only got worse. By the time I was in the bookstore, it was only slightly better, for little while. Almost like a calm before the storm. Then, I felt like I had to crap in my pants, walking around looking at books. I just ignored the feeling, and keep walking around anyway, trying to fart yet not defecate in my pants, to release some of the extreme pressure in my bowels. Very agonizing, but this isn’t what I’m writing about.
What I’m writing this post about is much more than having a gas attack in public. After finding The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, I was looking around, not really looking at anything. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mother were nowhere in sight, probably off at a CD store. I began looking at the sections. It has always annoyed me that this bookstore carries hardly any D&D books, and I was wondering if they had anything else that interested me. I went to the Japanese language section, to see if they had anymore books that I might want to buy. They didn’t, so I just keep walking around, and then I saw the Christian sections. There were so many of them, that the bible even had it’s own rack, for different translations and such. There were more Christian book sections than probably anything else in the store, except for the fiction sections. I looked around, and say a good number of sections devoted to New Age books, though only equaling about a fourth of the Christian books. Suddenly, I wondered if they had an atheism section. I walked around, I saw none. I walked around again, and saw the Philosophy section, with two racks devoted to it. I thought surely that they would have a section for atheism, so I walked around once more. Nothing. I returned to the philosophy section, wondering if there were any atheism books. I looked for two minutes before I spotted one, at the bottom of the rack.
I looked at the book. It was a purple book, thick, with yellow letters that read ATHEISM THE CASE AGAINST GOD. I looked at it some more. I looked around, seeing if anyone was looking at me. I bent down, and picked up the book, and flipped to a random page somewhere in the middle. Feeling frightened for some strange reason, I put the book back on the shelf. I stood up, looked at the book some more. I haven’t felt the sensation I felt since I went bunjee jumping, several years ago. It was like having butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to buy this book more than anything at that moment, but I thought it would be hard to hide it from my family on the way home. I thought about the situation some more, and decided that it wouldn’t be that hard, and after a leap of courage, I picked up the book, heading to the counter, using The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to cover up the book as I walked to the counter.
That’s when I heard my mother’s voice.
I looked back, and felt my stomach hit my knees. I immediately turn back, turned the corner to some book rack, and placed the book there, and went to greet my family.
Big deal you say? I was thinking of this forum the whole time. I was wondering whether or not I would write about my experience in not wanting to purchase the book, or when I picked the book up, how I went ahead with it. It wouldn’t have been a very long post, just something I would probably mention, maybe not even if I didn’t buy the book. But I made a conscious decision to pick the book up, and chickened out when I saw my family.
This event has enraged me. It has enraged me to the point to where I want to scream obscenities to Christians, for having their religious dominance in this country intimidate me into staying in the ‘closet’ about my beliefs. I can’t really describe how bad I feel because I was afraid of being seen as an atheist by my family, people who do believe in God, especially my mother. On the way home, not only was I still fighting bowel pains, I was fighting back tears, tears of anger, anger at Christianity, anger at this country, anger at my family, but most of all anger at myself for being a coward. I still almost feel like crying as I write this, and I really don’t know how to express what I feel at the moment into words. I made this post just to tell someone how I feel, to try and release the emotions I feel at the moment. I think it has worked somewhat, but now I seriously need to get some sleep.
I hope I enjoy the rest of Arthur Dent’s adventures.
For one thing, I’m a teenager. I never usually try to go out of my way to tell people my age, because it usually only hinders people accepting what I have to say, especially in places for debate of this sort. I am sixteen, male, and a dropout (another thing I don’t go out of my way to mention). I have no real life, no girlfriend, no license, no job, etc, etc. I sit at my computer most of the day, talking to various people, about various things. Of course this information implies certain negative qualities about my real life character, some of those implications are probably correct. I don’t go to great lengths to cover this up, indeed, I will admit I am a dropout if asked why I am online all the time, and I will admit my age, if asked in a sincere interest to get to know me better. Though this is a time that I feel I should give this information, so as you can better understand what I experienced today at the book store.
I woke up at roughly 5:30 PM EST yesterday, and have been up since then. I spent that evening, and all night, and most of the morning, talking to people in IRC, AIM, and an online RPG called EverQuest. When my sister woke up, I asked her if she would take me to the bookstore in the mall, she agreed, she already had plans on meeting our parents for lunch.
Before I continue, I’ll tell you why I wanted to go to the bookstore. It all started because of a thread in this forum, mentioning the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Tiassa is very articulate person, and her posts have almost fascinated me. I have heard of this book before, and when I read that post, I knew I would probably be buying the book very soon. In about a week, I bought the novel, and took it to a friend’s house to read it (wouldn’t ya know, he already bought the book himself…). I thought it was the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in a long time, since it has been awhile since I read a novel. Anyway, after reading it, I was going to buy the other books, but learned that they are all cramped into one book called The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. So, when I got back home, I was going to buy it and take back the paperback I purchased, but my dad cleaned my room while I was gone, and threw away the receipt. I was mildly irritated, but it wasn’t going to stop me from buying the entire series anyway. I put going to the mall off for awhile, because I had recently started playing EverQuest, but I got around to it today.
Back to the present, we went to lunch at Hooters. I highly recommend not going to that restaurant, the food is not that great, and the prices are way too high. Waitresses walking around in short shorts and cutoff tank tops isn’t worth the high prices, to say the least. We ended up paying 60$ for the meal, when we could have ate at a fast food place for around 20$. Since I didn’t actually pay anything, it wasn’t the price that made me wish I didn’t go there, it was the extreme gas I had after eating there. When we were walking out of that place, I was farting everywhere every 2 minutes. As time passed, dropping my dad back off at work, it only got worse. By the time I was in the bookstore, it was only slightly better, for little while. Almost like a calm before the storm. Then, I felt like I had to crap in my pants, walking around looking at books. I just ignored the feeling, and keep walking around anyway, trying to fart yet not defecate in my pants, to release some of the extreme pressure in my bowels. Very agonizing, but this isn’t what I’m writing about.
What I’m writing this post about is much more than having a gas attack in public. After finding The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, I was looking around, not really looking at anything. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mother were nowhere in sight, probably off at a CD store. I began looking at the sections. It has always annoyed me that this bookstore carries hardly any D&D books, and I was wondering if they had anything else that interested me. I went to the Japanese language section, to see if they had anymore books that I might want to buy. They didn’t, so I just keep walking around, and then I saw the Christian sections. There were so many of them, that the bible even had it’s own rack, for different translations and such. There were more Christian book sections than probably anything else in the store, except for the fiction sections. I looked around, and say a good number of sections devoted to New Age books, though only equaling about a fourth of the Christian books. Suddenly, I wondered if they had an atheism section. I walked around, I saw none. I walked around again, and saw the Philosophy section, with two racks devoted to it. I thought surely that they would have a section for atheism, so I walked around once more. Nothing. I returned to the philosophy section, wondering if there were any atheism books. I looked for two minutes before I spotted one, at the bottom of the rack.
I looked at the book. It was a purple book, thick, with yellow letters that read ATHEISM THE CASE AGAINST GOD. I looked at it some more. I looked around, seeing if anyone was looking at me. I bent down, and picked up the book, and flipped to a random page somewhere in the middle. Feeling frightened for some strange reason, I put the book back on the shelf. I stood up, looked at the book some more. I haven’t felt the sensation I felt since I went bunjee jumping, several years ago. It was like having butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to buy this book more than anything at that moment, but I thought it would be hard to hide it from my family on the way home. I thought about the situation some more, and decided that it wouldn’t be that hard, and after a leap of courage, I picked up the book, heading to the counter, using The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to cover up the book as I walked to the counter.
That’s when I heard my mother’s voice.
I looked back, and felt my stomach hit my knees. I immediately turn back, turned the corner to some book rack, and placed the book there, and went to greet my family.
Big deal you say? I was thinking of this forum the whole time. I was wondering whether or not I would write about my experience in not wanting to purchase the book, or when I picked the book up, how I went ahead with it. It wouldn’t have been a very long post, just something I would probably mention, maybe not even if I didn’t buy the book. But I made a conscious decision to pick the book up, and chickened out when I saw my family.
This event has enraged me. It has enraged me to the point to where I want to scream obscenities to Christians, for having their religious dominance in this country intimidate me into staying in the ‘closet’ about my beliefs. I can’t really describe how bad I feel because I was afraid of being seen as an atheist by my family, people who do believe in God, especially my mother. On the way home, not only was I still fighting bowel pains, I was fighting back tears, tears of anger, anger at Christianity, anger at this country, anger at my family, but most of all anger at myself for being a coward. I still almost feel like crying as I write this, and I really don’t know how to express what I feel at the moment into words. I made this post just to tell someone how I feel, to try and release the emotions I feel at the moment. I think it has worked somewhat, but now I seriously need to get some sleep.
I hope I enjoy the rest of Arthur Dent’s adventures.