Even as I write this, my teeth are on edge and I want to slap someone silly.
I spent the weekend at a motocross race, where there are a lot of kids. We see a lot of the same families on these weekends and I know that there is a strong representation of Christian families at these events. So I don't know why trickery must be employed to get people to listen to these wannabe preachers.
What happened was this:
Usually on Sunday morning, there will be a little church service before racing starts. So that racers can skip all these weekends at church and not feel like a total heathen. But this Sunday, an announcement was made that there was a donut eating contest up next to the main tent and all kids were invited. Of course, my 9 year old and her friend heard "donuts" and couldn't get up there fast enough. So there was this super cool looking, early 20's age guy orchestrating the contest, which was silly and badly executed. After the winner had been declared, he announced that the "devotional" would start soon; a little Bible talk for the kids. I rolled my eyes because that was bad enough, using the donuts to lure kids up there. But as my daughter and her friend wrinkled their noses at the church part and we were walking away, the guy hollered out, "Free candy for everyone who stays for the Bible lesson! It'll be really short!"
I was thinking, are you fucking KIDDING me???? Mr. Cool Guy is bribing all these kids with candy to stay and listen to his bullshit? If you have something worth peddling, why do you have to bribe the kids? It was such bullshit, and it really riled me up.
I let the girls choose whether to stay or not, and I guess they decided the free candy wasn't worth listening to Cool Guy stutter and stumble through his "talk". On the way back to our spot, I told them I thought they made the right choice and we talked about if it was ok to be offering kids candy to get them to listen.
I guess I'll chalk it up to a life lesson, and the fact that this is the culture in which I live. But it still pisses me off. It's still just WRONG. And it's everywhere. *growling in my head*