Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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The Enrapturator

Excuse me, I'm Jennifer and I'm here to talk to you about...
  (+10, -1)(+10, -1)
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Four times in the last month I've answered the door to find some well-meaning, wide-eyed, homespun idiot on my doorstep with a tract or pamphlet or picture featuring Haysoos, their imaginary friend.

This would be understandable in town but I'm miles out in the boonies where I thought these well-meaning but misguided cretins wouldn't bother me.

Yesterday, after the second pack of Yahweh's henchmen in a week had been shooed off the property, I went to the shed and made up a neat gadget.

A stout (6mm) braided steel cable, a handful of weather observation balloons, a car battery, a small winch, a few canisters of compressed helium and an old TV remote control were combined in haste.

Now there's a lasso hidden under the doormat and the rest of it hiding in the ferns by the front door. The correct button sequence on the remote and the next wannabe missionary is off to visit Steve Fossett, via the lower regions of the stratosphere, before they know it.

infidel, May 26 2011

Halfbakery: Front door sprinkler Front door sprinkler
You could sprinkle them... [zen_tom, May 26 2011]

John Moses Browning http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/John_Browning
"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and Despair ... [8th of 7, May 26 2011]

[link]






       You lose a few points for failure to employ pyrotechnics, propellants and/or explosives in a thoughtless, recklessly unsafe and highly inadvisable way, but still [+]
8th of 7, May 26 2011
  

       Supposedly, when the rapture comes, the righteous go up to heaven naked. If you were really mean you could have a loudspeaker play a recording in a big, reverby booming voice saying: "Nobody wearing pants will be admitted to heaven."
doctorremulac3, May 26 2011
  

       Good solution.
I invite them in for coffee and ask them all sorts of interesting, (to me), questions about things like the Dead sea scrolls and just where that second and third generation of people came from.
  

       They tend to drink their beverages rather quickly and then dey don wan to pway wif me no mo... : \   

       Answer door in robe. Invite them in. Wait until they sit down. Lock door. drop robe exposing nude self. Ask if they prefer the clamps or the crop first.
Voice, May 26 2011
  

       // Answer door in robe //   

       Answering the door in red satin robes complete with upside-down cross on necklace, ram's skull in hand and stage blood on fingers is VERY effective. Dim lights, chanting, and the occasional muffled bleat from behind a closed door ads immeasurably to the effect.   

       Also works well to deter double glazing salesmen.
8th of 7, May 26 2011
  

       Our Armourer, who works at FN,
Browning be thy name,
Thy breechblock come,
Thy load be done,
On earth as it is when airborne,
Give us this day our charge of lead,
And forgive us our misfires,
As we forgive those who mess with our backsights,
And lead us not into cook-offs,
But deliver us from feed jams,
For thine is the barrel, the stock and the action,
For ever and ever,
Lock and load....
  

       <link>   

       (dedicated to [MikeD])
8th of 7, May 26 2011
  

       Love the category.
RayfordSteele, May 26 2011
  

       When I was a student we had painted murals on double bed sheets for a theatrical event. One was a giant size prehistoric human sacrifice scene (a person being put headfirst into a cauldron by horned deity), we had it up in the front room, when some proselytisers knocked. We invited them in, but they stopped when they saw it and made excuses and left.
pocmloc, May 26 2011
  

       Having spent a couple years as a missionary, may I assure you - you've got to have a pretty negligible sense of self-respect if you're going to out-do everybody else out there in the category of "be mean to missionaries".   

       [infidel]'s idea - with the weather balloons - is original enough it would probably earn a mention in a letter home. Most of the other stuff - just regular noise, a half-dozen a day. Guns, knives, dog shit, pepper spray... it's a victory to get back to the apartment with a clean shirt in good repair.   

       The one that still causes me to lose sleep, though, was the little lady who opened the door a crack, caught sight of my companion and I, said "No, thank you" and shut the door.   

       A few minutes after we left, her husband, upset that she'd answered the doorbell, killed her with a baseball bat.
lurch, May 26 2011
  

       //Guns, knives, dog shit, pepper spray... it's a victory to get back to the apartment with a clean shirt in good repair.//   

       It's almost as if people were sending some sort of coded message.
MaxwellBuchanan, May 26 2011
  

       Either the encoding schema is fairly sophisticated, or the message recipients are fairly stupid.   

       You choose.
8th of 7, May 26 2011
  

       //sending some sort of coded message//   

       "The potholes of humanity are, fortunately, a minority - but some of them go a long, long way down"   

       //message recipients are fairly stupid// ... you haven't answered my question yet.
lurch, May 26 2011
  

       //"The potholes of humanity are, fortunately, a minority - but some of them go a long, long way down"//   

       That is profound.
infidel, May 26 2011
  

       "That's deep" would be a better phrase ...
8th of 7, May 27 2011
  

       Thought of that and decided to spare everyone the agony.
infidel, May 27 2011
  

       Would an Acme Spring-Loaded Doormat work just as well (though with less range)?
AbsintheWithoutLeave, May 27 2011
  

       // decided to spare everyone the agony //   

       <email>   

       "Hey, Inf, someone's hacked your HB account."   

       </email>   

       Steer clear of Acme stuff - it's never as good as the picture on the box.
8th of 7, May 27 2011
  

       //"That's deep" would be a better phrase ...// (Wictionary) "Profound 1. Descending far below the surface; opening or reaching to a great depth; deep."   

       I know 2 people who have answered the door to proselytisers partly or completely naked. That worked.
spidermother, May 27 2011
  
      
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