[Ansteorra] Freakin' Mundanes (was: "Are you in a play?" )-longish

[Pat Mullins]

--- On Thu, 7/17/08, Chris Zakes <dontivar at gmail.com> wrote:
>Another Blackfox moment:
>
>one strip showed a variety of responses to the question "Are you in a
play?"


You have to be careful about that, though. There's a story about Don 
Jeremy and Don Durmast stopping in a convenience store in College 
staqtion on the way to an event. The clerk asked if they were in a 
play, they said yes. Next he wanted to know what play, so they said 
"Cyrano de Bergerac". So next he wanted to know who they were
playing...

It turns out he was a theatre student at A&M who'd just been studying
Cyrano.




         -Tivar Moondragon


Two of my favorite SCA/mundane stories both took place at one of my first events, Shadowlands Xth Year, nearly 20 years ago. The site was across the highway from a little country store, possibly the same one Dons Jeremy and Durmast went to. Now I must explain that in those days, before I kicked the habit, my persona was a monk. During the morning I walked across the road to the store with a couple of others, and as we walked up two nuns walked out. Real nuns, with wimples and everything. One of them asked to what order I belonged. I gave them my joke SCA answer, that I was a brother of the Order of St. Genera. They both had blank looks, not being familiar with that Order, then one of the nuns noticed that my friends were a Viking and a Musketeer, and figured out my robe was a costume. She laughed, then leaned over to her companion and said, "I think he's a generic monk." They both laughed, then asked what was going on. My more experienced friend Mike
 explained who we were and what we were doing.
Later that day, I walked back to the store with a larger group of 7 or 8. As we made our purchases we waited in the a/c for everyone to finish, so we could walk back as a group. While I was waiting, a couple of rednecks walked in. They stood off to one side, giving us strange looks, and as we left I heard one of them say to the other, "Lookit them freaks in their weird clothes. I bet they're devil worshippers. I seen their sign: Society fer Creation of Antichrist. An' that one there, with the hood, he must be their leader." As we walked back I told the others what I'd heard, and we all had a good laugh. 
Several months later I was at a church activity (the Episcopal Church, ya'll want to talk about liberal) and there was one guy there who was a little more fundamental than most Episcopalians. He started on a rant about the evil symbols of Satan all around us, how Procter & Gamble were Satanists, you could tell by their logo,etc. Then he said, " Do you know that little store on Highway 21? the Smetana Store? You should not go there. Ever. There are devil worshipers who meet there!" I had an idea where the story was going, but I kept a straight face and asked how he knew that. He said a friend of his knew someone who had seen the devil worshipers there a few months before. I asked how he knew they were devil worshipers. He said, "I heard they were wearing weird clothes. And the leader was wearing a hood."
Actually, I was wearing a cowl. And a brown t-tunic. And a three inch tall, shiny brass, pectoral cross (right side up), but they only saw what they were looking for.
And believe it or not I've heard talk of devil worshipers in weird clothes at the Smetana Store as recently as 4 or 5 years ago, and the leader still wears a hood.

Paedric