I’d Like to Waste a Terrible Mime

Recently, I met a young man who was very excited about buying a new home. He was a very animated person and barely had time to talk about what he wanted in a new home because he couldn’t stop talking about his church. He just wanted to spread the word to everyone and according to him; God would provide him whatever he wanted because he had dedicated his life to religion. This is actually a very normal thing. I have people who come in all the time and tell me that God told them as they were driving by a certain house that it was theirs.

So I was really enjoying this conversation and we finally began to talk about the house. He said that he had 5 children that he needed to support and he wanted them to each have their own room. He was a single guy so he wanted a great master bedroom if he was ever blessed enough to receive another wife. (It’s refreshing to hear someone say that a wife would be a blessing. That last sentence was to be read with a sarcastic tone.) We decided that we had a home that would fit his needs and have a great closet for his future blessed wife.

Now it was time to start talking about the almighty dollar. Every time we have this discussion, things tend to get interesting. I let him know that his monthly payment would be around $1500 and he said, “I’m not worried about it. God will provide for me and my family.”

So I asked him what he did for a living and did not realize that I was going to get a broadway show. He stood up, bent his knees, started looking around like he was crazy and then started moving his hands like he was trapped in a box. He pushed the door open to his imaginary box and then I guess his imaginary box was hanging from an imaginary rope because he grabbed the imaginary rope and started pulling himself along the rope across my entire office. The rope ended behind my chair where he pulled an imaginary bunch of flowers out of his imaginary pocket, smelled it and handed it to me.

I didn’t want to cater to this stupidity so I just smiled at him with my best fake smile and said, “Umm…ok.” The smile wasn’t what he wanted. He just kept smiling weirdly and bending over closer to my face to hand me the flowers.

Oh God. I was going to have to accept these stupid non-existent flowers. So I slowly and embarrassingly took the imaginary flowers and said “Thank you,” while looking down at my shoes because I suddenly felt like a complete idiot and a little scared for his sanity and my safety.

When I said, “Thank you”, he bowed as if to royally say, “You’re welcome.” I just kept hoping that this ridiculous show was over. It wasn’t. Of course, he had to get back to his “box”. So then he grabbed his imaginary rope again and pulled himself back over to his chair, opened the door to his box, sat down in his box, looked around all sad and then held his hands out in the air as if to say, “Well? Whaddya think?”

Let me first just add that he was a terrible mime. So I said, “You’re a mime.”
He said, “Yeah! How’d you guess?” and laughed a psychotic laugh that made me wish I was packing heat on a hip holster just in case he pulled out an imaginary knife.

As much as I wanted him to leave, I humored him and asked him where he was employed as a mime around here. He said that he mimed at his church. He mimed the hymns while the congregation sang.

Now, I’ve been to church my whole life and never in all my thirty five years did I ever say to myself, “I could totally understand these words to this music better if someone was acting it out or miming it badly at the front of the church.”

Looking back on this experience, I can’t believe that I asked him the next question. Here goes…”How do you mime a hymn?”

Instead of answering me, he did the last thing that I hoped he wouldn’t do. He stood up again and acted out a hymn that I had never heard before while he sang the song. Let me just add that he is a far better mime than a singer.

Enough with this imaginary crap, let’s find out if he makes a good living as a mime. I think I know the answer. I asked him what he made per month and he said it’s different every month, but some Sundays he makes more than $150. But he says that he will be provided with what he wants because of his godly lifestyle.

So I did a mime of my own and put my hands up in the air and said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you.” He was sad, showed me an imaginary tear running down his face but vowed to save up all his offering money and come back and buy the house with cash. I said, “I’ll see you then.” I didn’t feel bad because I knew he could build an imaginary house and be just as happy as if he was trapped in a real one.