And on the fifth day, the Lord created the kender

I do quite a bit of business at my local UPS Store and, no, it does not involve mailing the body parts of hookers to my friend in Dead Indian Bend, IA. That was a young man’s game. These days I do a brisk trade in dried ears severed from Japanese soldiers by America’s Greatest Generation.

My local UPS Store is run by three guys and a redheaded slutty girl. Two of the guys constantly read and re-read Dragonlance books, and the slutty girl loves to lean over the counter, flash her chubby breasts, and ask “Is it time for margaritas?” to which I usually respond with a flummoxed “I…don’t know,” because I’m secretly Niles Crane.

The other guy, though, is a bit skeevy. He’s this tall, thin 20-something who always has a leather-bound Bible open at his work station. For three years now, whenever I come in, he’s been sitting silently at his station reading the Bible while his two companions argue viciously about whether the fact that kenders wear shoes is enough to make them “not Hobbits” and the redhead swans around in tight jeans and appears mysteriously at my elbow asking her question about margaritas like some sort of alcoholic savant.

Bible boy seems okay when it comes to handling a transaction, but I have one big problem: I just don’t trust people who read the Bible over and over again. I can’t help but wonder if they believe, perhaps, that the story’s going to change.

I understand the concept of studying the teachings and all that shit, but, let’s be honest here, the Bible is kind of a children’s book. That’s sort of the whole point, from the publishing perspective of things. Your target audience is people with a sixth grade education. That’s how you get a billion followers who don’t flinch when you suggest they burn a girl at the stake because she didn’t give you a blowjob. Now, that said, it’s a big book. Certainly one reading won’t quite stick with you. I can even see up to three readings, if you want to be a student of the Word of…uh…God. Or “God,” to be more accurate.

Now, if you’re reading this book constantly, year after year, and you don’t have it all in your head… Well, you’re kind of bad at the whole studying thing, no? If I had to read it over and over, I’d be frustrated simply because the Bible is full of people who quote scripture yet are, seemingly, illiterate. Jesus is spouting shit off when he’s a kid, and there are a bunch of Old Testament people who wander in out of the desert and have everything memorized, and even Satan seems to have a word-for-word memory of the entire Bible. They weren’t walking around with a leather-bound Bible. Why should you? And, yes, this might be a What Would Satan Do moment. He would just fucking know the Bible because he has a brain.

This leads me to think that constantly having the Bible on hand and meditating over the words in public (I see this same thing on the Metro every day, as well) is actually just for show. Look at me, I have a Bible. The “look at me” syndrome is the same reason I still use film and get it developed at CVS — so I can force people to look at 48 shots of my remarkably beautiful penis. But even I have to draw a line somewhere. I’m not sitting at my work station all day, constantly stroking my magnificent penis, and refusing to make eye contact with my whorish redheaded co-worker. I could! I could… But I don’t. I’d like to. But I don’t. Nor do I do it on the Metro. There I just avoid eye contact and, when women with long hair sit in front of me and their hair spills over the back of the seat, I gently pet it and drool a little bit, but I never rub my truly lovely penis.

So now that I got that out of my system, I want to talk about my other big problem: I don’t trust people who read the Dragonlance books over and over again.