Chaotic Not Random

That's all I really ever wanted to know about Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy. I don't talk to him much at work, partly because I'm unfriendly and hostile, but mostly because he's a gun-totin', Bush-votin' Jesus freak, and I didn't think we'd have much in common.

"Come now, Kilgore," you are saying. "Aren't you making a hasty and unfair judgment, based on a few political and religious differences, about someone who might turn out to be a totally decent person if you got to know him a little better?"

Well, ha ha ha all over you. I did get to know Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy a little better today, and I can tell you that not only do we have nothing in common, but I'm not even sure we're members of the same species.

I didn't get to know Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy a little better on purpose. It happened at my company's holiday luncheon, an annual affair where we all climb onto buses and ride to Cinzzetti's, a faux-Italian buffet joint that would look exactly like a rustic Italian villa, if rustic Italian villas were located on I-25 next to a Home Depot and had disturbing replicas of the Mona Lisa painted on their exteriors. Anyway, I sat across from Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy. Usually he keeps pretty quiet, but something in the bruschetta must have put him in a sharing mood.

"I told my wife that if she ever weighs more than I do, she's going to have to move out," was among the insights he offered.

An uncomfortable tension settled on our table, made up mostly of women. "Didn't your wife just have a baby?" somebody asked.

"Oh yeah," he said, "and she's looking pretty good now. As soon as she got home from the hospital, I told her, 'Okay, it's time to lose that weight.'"

I stared at my grilled zucchini. What to say? Little did I know that Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy had better stories to tell on the bus ride home, where I made the tactical mistake of sitting in front of him. I then made the even worse mistake of asking him where he met his wife.

"When I moved to Denver, I started going to this church," he said, "and the pastor's daughter was beautiful. I mean, she was gorgeous. But I couldn't go out with her because her father asked me if I was a virgin, and I said, 'No sir, I'm not,' and he said, 'There's no way you're getting near my daughter.'"

"You know," I said, "if anyone ever asks if you're a virgin, the correct answer is probably 'Yes.'"

"Well, anyway," he said, "I met another girl at the church and settled for her. That was a mistake. But in my religion, you're together until... well, somebody has to die."

"Uh huh," I said. Something about the way he said "somebody has to die" chilled me, as if Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy was thinking about having a accident-on-purpose with his hunting rifle pointed at his wife.

"But she's stable," he continued, "and she submits to her husband, and she does what I tell her."

"Mmm," I said. What else to say?

Turbo-Christian Payroll Guy looked toward the back of the bus and turned back to me, his eyes wide. "In the back, with the dark hair," he whispered, "who is that?"

"I don't know her name," I said, "I think she's a contractor. She works back in engineering. She's pretty good-looking, huh?"

"Yeah, she's a hottie!" he said with enthusiasm, and looked back again. I resisted the temptation to quote Matthew 5:28, where Jesus said, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

There's are some things you just don't get into on the bus ride back from Cinzzetti's.