Can’t Wait to Meet the FBI

Today I had one of the stranger experiences of my life.

Back in December, I became convinced God wanted me to brew beer again. Within less than two weeks, I had a beer finished. During the time while I was getting the whole business back on its feet, I looked for sources of things like grain and tools, and I found a really excellent homebrew supply place in Orlando, over an hour away. I bought my first grain batches there. I went in person, and I was impressed by the service and prices.

As part of this process, I needed to look after my gas bottles. I needed CO2 and beer gas for draft beer. I always to go Airgas near me, but they said they could not deal with 5-pound bottles. I checked measurements to see if I could use a 20-pounder in my keezer, and I learned it would cost me a keg, so I gave the idea up. I emailed the supply place to see if they knew anything, and they recommended a gas supplier right around the corner from them.

Over the last week or two, I’ve had what I thought was dermatitis on my hands. My skin was cracking, and when hot water hit my hands, it stung. I thought maybe I had been in contact with some harsh chemical or other. I also wondered if it was just age. Maybe old people’s hands don’t deal well with all the cleaning involved with homebrewing. I thought about going to a dermatologist, but then I thought maybe I should just try lotion.

Before Rhodah and I went to Singapore, I applied for Global Entry, which is a government service that allows citizens returning to the US to bypass a lot of the DHS/Customs torment and waiting. You have to fill out an online application, pay a fee, and then make an appointment to be interviewed in person.

Because this is the government we’re talking about, appointments are scheduled far in advance, and you have to drive a long way to be interviewed unless you live near one of a small number of facilities. I applied in November, and the best I could do was January 6, which I somehow missed.

When I looked for a new appointment on the government’s site, I saw very depressing news. They wanted me to wait months. Then I learned about a private company that scans appointment schedules continuously and tells people when spots open up. The government doesn’t tell anyone when it decides to add appointments, and it does not inform people of cancellations, so a private company does it for $29 per month.

You have to love the government.

When an appointment pops up, you have to jump on it fast, no matter what time it is, because other people are also using the service.

I paid the fee, and I started seeing appointments popping up in my text messages. The closest places were Orlando, Sanford and Tampa.

I saw an appointment I liked. I took it. I saw a better one. I rescheduled. New appointments kept coming up, and I kept running to the PC to reschedule.I found myself in February. Then yesterday, I got a shock. I saw an appointment for today, in Sanford.

I grabbed it. I was thrilled. The wait would be over, and I had to go to Orlando anyway to run beer errands. This saved me a second set of tolls plus gas. Sanford is near Orlando.

As I got ready to leave today, I thought maybe I should plan a stop to get some lotion, but I decided to wait.

I went to the gas place first. They could not have been nicer. They gave me shiny new tanks, took my old ones that needed testing, and sent me on my way. I went to the brew store. Everything went well there, too. Then I drove to the Sanford airport, where they do interviews.

I was not happy about dealing with the government. It belongs to Satan, and I do not see the government as my friend. I don’t want to deal with law enforcement, ever, if I can avoid it. Homeland Security is close to the top of agencies I want nothing to do with. Who knew what questions they would ask? What if Bidenistas ran the place, knew I was a far-right Christian, and wanted to make trouble?

I resented having to go through this, but I really did not want to wait in any more long customs lines.

I went into the airport and sat down. The agent came out, asked who was next, and ushered me in, early. He held the door.

They ask you where you’ve gone in recent months. I was wearing a Singapore shirt and an Ephesus hat. He asked me how Ephesus was. I told him my wife and I had really enjoyed it. I said we were Christians, so it had significance to us. There is no other reason to go to Ephesus, so I thought I needed to explain.

He said he was a Christian, too. He said, “God bless you.”

I was more than a little freaked out.

I started telling him about Ephesus and the pizza-shaped ichthus signs the underground church left there. He told me he had worked in Israel for 6 months. He said, “I worked on a kibbutz.”

Most people would say, “What’s a kibbutz?” I got excited. I asked which one.

He worked at Nir-David, near Beit She’an. I didn’t know Nir-David, but I knew Beit She’an. It was just down the road when I lived on Geva. He also worked on a kibbutz near Jericho where they grew bananas. He said one of the places where he worked grew pummelos. Geva was in the process of replacing grapefruit with pummelos when I worked there!

We got into all sorts of things. We had been to the same temples in Egypt. We had both cruised the Nile, although he did it as a kid on a little rented sailboat, and I did it on a nice cruise ship. We had been the the pyramids. He had seen more of them than I had. He had been to Saqqara. We couldn’t go to Saqqara because Rhodah felt an attack of evil spirits inside the Great Pyramid, and we had to go back to the hotel so she could recover. I told him that.

He had been all over the Sinai Peninisula with a backpack. I told him I had turned down a trip. I said a Finnish girl on the Kibbutz had offered to pay my way so I could protect her from Middle Eastern men. Then we started talking about Israeli men and their abnormally high sex drive, and that got us to the subject of Israeli women and how unexpectedly attractive they were.

He had been to the Banias. He started to explain it to me, but I knew about it already. It’s one of my favorite topics. He knew how the pagans had thrown sacrifices into the spring there and how it was believed to be the site of Caesarea Phillipi, where Jesus called Peter “Satan,” told him to get behind him, and said the gates of hell would not prevail against his church. It is said that, “gates of hell” referred to the area of the Banias, because it was a center of demon worship. The Banias itself looks like a gate of hell. It’s a big hole in the side of the base of Mount Hermon.

Mount Hermon is significant to me because it’s believed to be the place where fallen angels came down and made a pact to have sex with women and then stick together when they had to account for themselves to God.

He said I was the first person he had interviewed who had known about kibbutzes. I think. Maybe he said I was the first one who knew about the Banias. He was amazed.

We talked much too long, and then he had me put my hands on the fingerprint machine, which didn’t see my fingerprints. He said I should try applying some hand sanitizer, but it didn’t help. He excused himself, went out, and got a bottle of lotion, which I put on my hands. The machine then worked.

I shook his hand when we parted, and he said, “God bless you,” again.

I thought I was going to have a creepy, scary government interview, but instead, I met a brother. I must have made 5 appointments while I was looking for a convenient time, and look who I ended up with. I picked his location and a time when he was working, and I had no idea who he was or even that he existed.

I got to my car and made a short video call to Rhodah and told her. She was amazed. I prayed after we hung up. Then I started the car and turned on Waze to find the best way home. I set home as my destination, and my phone said, “Have a blessed drive.”

I’m not kidding. Waze told me to have a blessed drive. I’ve been using it for at least 5 years. It has never said anything like that to me. I was actually scared for a minute.

The interview shocked me so much, I started asking myself if the government had had people look at my blog and investigate my past so they could have a plant pretend to be a Christian with amazingly similar experiences. It was hard for me to believe God had brought us together, so my mind looked for other explanations.

Of course, the government is far too stupid to do a thing like that. The government is only smart in movies and in the minds of socialists and other authoritarians.

As I was writing this, my approval came through, and when I got home, I realized my hands were better. The lotion did the trick, so now I know what to do about the cracks.

I wonder what’s on tap for tomorrow.