Crazy Religious Guy

My grandmother lives by herself and is legally blind so I help her out with stuff and am usually the one that gets her groceries every week.  So yesterday I was at the supermarket getting her groceries and I was waiting in line to check out.  There were quite a few people in front of me and it was going to take a while so I pulled out the book I’m reading, which just so happens to be The Satanic Bible.  (As you know I’m an atheist so I don’t believe in any religious stuff.  I’m also reading the Bible and Qur’an.)  I swear I’m like a magnet for crazy people.  I’m just standing in line quietly reading my book and the guy behind me lost his mind.  I mean he went off.  He started screaming at me about how inappropriate it was for me to have that book out in public and that I was disrespecting him and his children.  His three children were right there and it looked like the oldest was maybe 5 years old.  I’d hazard that they wouldn’t know how to read and even if they did all they’d be able to see was the cover and would they even know what it meant?
 

So this guy is going off, his kids look scared, everyone else in line is looking at us.  I was like ‘Sir, could you stop screaming at me?  I don’t worship Satan, I’m an atheist.  I’m just reading this for fun.  I’m not doing anything to you and you’re causing a scene.’  And now he’s ranting about God and how I’m going to burn in hell and I need to repent of my sinful ways.  By this time I’m getting a little nervous, this guy is a lot bigger than me and he’s freaking out, it wouldn’t be the first time I was assaulted by some religious nut.  I asked him again to stop yelling and stated that his children appeared scared.  And he continued screaming at me.  By this point I had reached the register and was being rung out and the cashier had paged security.  The security guy showed up and was trying to get the crazy guy to leave and he’s still going off demanding to speak to a manager.  So then the manager shows up and the guy demands that they force me to leave.  The entire time this has been going on I’ve just been standing there not saying anything.  Then the guy lunged forward like he was going to grab me and I freaked out a little.  I don’t like being touched.

I was like ‘Sir please back up.’  And he said something like ‘What are you going to do if I don’t?’  This guy was really pissing me off at this point; he was being verbally abusive, trying to physically intimidate me.  I had had it.  I told him that if he didn’t get away from me I would call onto the devil to curse him.  He wouldn’t move.  This part is exact because I read it directly from the book. 

“In the name of Satan, the Ruler of the earth, the King of the world, I command the forces of Darkness to bestow their Infernal power upon me!  Open wide the gates of Hell and come forth from the abyss to greet me as your sister and friend!  Grant me the indulgences of which I speak!  I have taken thy name as part of myself!  I live as the beasts of the field, rejoicing in the fleshly life!  I favor the just and curse the rotten!  By all the Gods of the Pit, I command that these things of which I speak come to pass!  Come forth and answer to your names by manifesting my desires!” 

“Behold!  The mighty voices of my vengeance smash the stillness of the air and stand as monoliths of wrath upon a plain of writhing serpents.  I am become as a monstrous machine of annihilation to the festering fragments of the body of he who would detain me.  It repenteth me not that my summons doth ride upon the blasting winds which multiply the sting of my bitterness; and great black slimy shapes shall rise from brackish pits and vomit forth their pustulence into his puny brain.  I call upon the messengers of doom to slash with grim delight this victim I hath chosen.  Silent is that voiceless bird that feeds upon the brain-pulp of him who hath tormented me, and the agony of the is to be shall sustain itself in shrieks of pain, only to serve as signals of warning to those who would resent my being.  Oh come forth in the name of Abaddon and destroy him whose name I giveth as a sign.  Oh great brothers of the night, thou who makest my place of comfort, who rideth out upon the hot winds of Hell, who dwelleth in the devil's fane; Move and appear! Present yourselves to him who sustaineth the rottenness of the mind that moves the gibbering mouth that mocks the just and strong!; rend that gaggling tongue and close his throat, Oh Kali!  Pierce his lungs with the stings of scorpions, Oh Sekhmet!  Plunge his substance into the dismal void, Oh mighty Dagon!  I thrust aloft the bifid barb of Hell and on its tines resplendently impaled my sacrifice through vengeance rests!  Shemhamforash!  Hail Satan!”

The guy’s eyes got really big and he turned super red and jumped back like I had stabbed him with a hot poker.  And then he muttered some stuff, screamed that he had to go to church and ran away and left.  Without his children.  What kind of person just abandons their three young children at the supermarket?  Some people shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.  And then this old lady who had seen the whole thing came up and gave me a prayer card and said that all Christians aren’t like that and she hoped I didn’t take it seriously.  I told her it was cool and that I know most Christians are good people and not complete nut-jobs.  Old people are so sweet.

I know ‘cursing’ someone isn’t going to help the situation any but this guy pissed me off.  I can only take so much.  You can yell at me all you want but don’t come into my personal space.  I draw the line when you start invading my personal space looking like you’re going to strike me.  Religion aside, if I was reading a book, could be any book, that you didn’t want your children to see, maybe ask politely for me to put it away instead of screaming at me for disrespecting you?  If you’re so worried about the well-being of your children maybe don’t start an argument that leads to you abandoning your children at a supermarket requiring that they be placed in children’s protective services?  It’s common sense people.

And because I know you’ll ask, yes this did happen at Walmart and no it was not at the same Walmart that I got called a 'devil person.'