No sir, I'm with you

The pick up comes from a wedding mill, one of those special occasion places that always overserve and attract suspiciously well-dressed white people who are sloppy drunks. I've got a couple for 20 minutes, going south to an area that's also usually populated by troublesome people, and after being far too impressed by my level of preparation, they want to talk. Well, that'll happen, especially when you pick up people who are privileged and intoxicated, so have at it.

They ask me if this is my full-time gig, and since the answer is no and the current office hustle is tangentially involved in politics, away we go into that realm. The wife (they identified, not a guess) is elbowing the husband into not talking, but he's too far gone for that, and they like me too much to not mess with them. I also do not share his politics, which, it is soon learned, veer into apocalyptic conspiracy theories about the southern border. 

You see, there's millions (MILLIONS!) of able-bodied men, just invading us, and my presumed political side is just enlisting them all into a Secret Militia to take the country. (Nifty if true! I so wish my side was as cunning and capable as conspiracists believe.) Rather than take on this insanity head-on, I distract my man by asking if he knows anything about Japan, aka a country with strict immigration, declining birth rates because that's what always happens when people make money (look it up! all the way back to 18th century Jewish communities!), and surburbs filled with really old people, watching their country gray into irrelevance. 

This provokes several seconds of blissful silence, followed by a defeated, "You're crazy,", but I know by his tone that I've got him thinking through the alcohol. The conversation becomes marginally more interesting and definitely more cordial for the last five minutes, before he plays the inevitable faith card and asks if I believe in The Lord.

At this point, it's time to have some fun... so I note having read the text, and ask him if he's familiar with the historical changes that the faith has undergone. My favorite being that the medieval concept of Heaven being a place where the exalted *hear* the lamentations of the punished, because it can't *be* Heaven without that. (Seriously. Look it up. Tertullian and St. Aquinas.)

Befuddled silence from the back seat. Then, finally, "So you're not in Hell right now?"

I wait a beat and reply, "No, sir, I'm with you."

Proud moment of mindfuckery, that.

They leave a few minutes later, but not before he fixes me with a steely look and says, "Know this; every knee will bend. Every knee."

I nod, drive off and wait for the tip. Most fun I've had in weeks.