Cult classic

Last night, after visiting some friends and their new baby, I was sitting at the bus stop, waiting for a bus (obviously), feeling very slightly depressed about my biological clock, and therefore somewhat slumped in the chair. A young man approached me and engaged me in conversation (something of a rarity in itself)—inevitably, this being the one day I'd left my iPod at work, I was missing my usual defence against people wanting to talk to me (I'd had a few glasses of wine as well so I didn't have the forethought to pretend to be foreign which is my second defence against people wanting to talk to me). My excitement at being chatted up waned however, when he prodded the young lady sitting next to me and asked her to remove her headphones and listen as well. Turned out he was from a “youth church” in Edmonton and wanted to invite us to come along next Wednesday to talk to “other young people" about life, work and anything else we'd like to discuss with our “peers”. Plus there would be “lots of boys there”.

Unfortunately, rather than focus on the positives of the situation i.e. that I look young enough to attend a “youth church”, all I could think about was the fact that I apparently look like I have several problems which need discussing.

Eventually he went away (without my phone number) and proceeded to pester a bunch of other “yoofs”. I turned to the girl next to me, smiled and said “I only wanted to get on a bus, not join a cult,” to which she smiled sweetly and replied “Innit.”