I don’t stand in the doorway of his church every Sunday handing out copies of the UWM Post.

After living in the city for a few years, I had gotten into the habit of not accepting anything a stranger tried to hand me. If you live in the city, you know the kinds of “gifts” you are likely to receive.

For those of you who are new to city life, allow me to warn you: someone is likely to hand you something you don’t want to touch. Think of the waste you see on the side of the street: used condoms, chewed up food, dead rats, human feces. Now think of the fact that many of the people wandering the streets are doing so because they were long ago kicked out of the state mental institutions that kept them safe from themselves.

I digress, my point is, once you learn the consequences of taking random handouts, you will stop doing so. This brings me to the annoyance formerly known as “Jesus Pencils Guy.” I have been calling him by this classic name since I first figured out what he was handing out. Now, apparently, he has given up on the pencils, and he’s just “Jesus Guy,” although the adjusted name doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This guy used to stand on the first landing in the main part of the union and ask people if they wanted free pencils. Of course, nothing is free, and the price you paid for these pencils was the freedom of religion. The pencils were neatly wrapped in a couple of verses of scripture, and if I remember correctly, had one small line of type taped to the side of each individual pencil: “Jesus Saves.”

Now, back in the old days, it was almost worth taking the pencils, especially if you had an exam that day, but now, when he asks you if you want “free supplies” he will give you a pushy pro-life pamphlet and the most useless, tiny, computer-printed 2006 calendar you have ever seen. At least the pencils were useful.

I see this guy every year, standing in the same place, trying to save 28,000 (give or take) students’ souls from damnation. I respect the fact that he is passionate about something, but his insistence, albeit muted, that I agree with him bothers me. I don’t stand in the doorway of his church every Sunday handing out copies of the UWM Post. I would appreciate him keeping his church out of my school.

Also, his tradition of standing in the middle of the landing on the main stairwell is thoroughly irritating when one is in a hurry to get to class. He is always trying to hand people his religious goodies, while most people shrink away from his offering hand. This creates quite the jumble of bodies pressed together against the opposite side of the stairs. This holds up all Union traffic, causing me great irritation and a barrage of obscenities to escape my otherwise docile lips.

I guess we could sum it up like this: I respect his freedom of speech, but the location of his speech is causing me to act in a way that would be highly disapproved of by the Christian organization he is trying to represent.

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