Do I know the Devil?

So I was sitting at this Starbucks like a few years ago. This woman sitting next to me starts talking to me about how she’s phobic about germs. When she stays at hotels she cleans the bathroom and brings her own sleeping bag to put over the bed. I think she even mentioned that she sleeps in a tent sometimes, to make sure that no ‘germs’ touch her.

This crazy Obsessive Compulsive woman was African American and probably about forty. I had just moved from Chicago (I lived in Chicago for like a year) and was looking for freelance writing work. She said she might have something for me.

She asked me what it was like being, you know, Middle Eastern. I told her I wasn’t but people think I’m like related to Osama bin Laden.

I don’t know how this came up but she just looked over at me and said, I swear out of nowhere, “Do you know him?”

“Who?” I asked and imagined her zipped in a tent at the Holiday Inn.

“Osama, you know Bin Laden,” she replied and I stared at her in disbelief.

“Excuse me?” I mean I knew she was a little strange, with the germ-o phobia and everything but this was ridiculous. Of course at the moment I could think of nothing to say.

“I-I-NO! OF COURSE NOT!” I was a little loud. Then I got up and walked away.

Well, I have something to say now. How dare you. Being a minority woman yourself, a successful, (she owned a business) minority woman how dare you assume that I, because I’m brown, know the devil. You paranoid weirdo.

No, me and Osama Bin Laden are not pen pals. No, I’m not a part of his Harem. You ignorant witch…the CIA can’t find him but little girl over here knows where he is.

I’m sorry I just, I just, I just get so pissed off at stupid people. Anyways… no didn’t slap her. I’m a nonviolent person. I just looked at her funny. Real funny.

What would Buffy the Vampire Slayer do? I don’t know I never got into the vampire scene; however I have heard amazing things about it. I should have sucked her blood.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in the devil. However Al Pacino played the Devil in that one movie…damn it…um The Devil’s Advocate. He was amazing. Almost as amazing as his Academy Award winning performance as a blind man in Scent of a Woman.

I watched that with my dad when he had a little eye sight left. He would go up real close to the screen and say…”He’s doing it right…he’s got it right.” One line I will never forget is when Pacino put’s a gun to his head and says, “I’m in the dark here…” He played a devil like character who had a heart of gold.

Anyway…apparently Madonna said some stuff at a concert and got booed by like thousands of fans. That woman has got it goin’ on. She stood up for Gypsies who are being slaughtered at an alarming rate. I think Madonna’s goin’ to Heaven.

A little note about Michael Jackson, God rest his soul: Michael, did you meet the devil? Did you do it or not? Are you in Heaven or Hell. Is there really a Hell? I didn’t think so.

Whether or not you believe Michael Jackson was a child molester or a genius or a freak, you didn’t want him dead anymore than I did.

If there is a God or a Devil or just nothing: Know this Michael you are missed.

I think it’s time now for Osama Bin Laden to meet his match. Who do you think is worse off, the Devil or Osama? I think Obama is kind of the anti-Devil.

Devil inside, devil inside, every single woman’s got the devil inside…U2. Maybe the Devil’s a woman.

nina