Unfortunately, she went back into the cult shortly after her little fling with my friend Vince. She later tried (unsuccessfully) to convert me, but that's a whole other story.

In short, it was years after the Vince thing, and we had sort of reconciled due to us both being friends with Cal (the best friend I mention in the story). While we were all hanging out at a local hookah lounge she mentioned that my hair was getting ridiculously long, which it was. She offered to cut it for free, and since I knew she was actually a pretty skilled hairdresser, I took her up on her offer.

I go to her house the next day, we decide to do the haircut on her front porch since it was nice out and so she could sweep the hair away easier. Halfway through my haircut, Xenos members start showing up to her house - "Oh yeah, I forgot there was a prayer meeting here tonight" she says. I immediately started kicking myself.

She goes inside for a glass of water and leaves me on her front porch surrounded by Xenos members, who all start with teh cult tactic of "love bombing" - they basically all act like you're the most interesting person they've ever met and all of your favorite things are their favorite things too. Well, I was no longer the innnocent, wide-eyed young man I had been. I saw this coming as soon as Anne had said "prayer meeting".

Here's the thing with evangelicals - when they spy a Jew to convert, it's like when a hunter sees a 10-point buck. So I'm surrounded by hunters for Christ, eyeing me like fresh game. But I have plan! I know where this is going! The guy who was the obvious prayer leader starts taking the conversation away from my classes and musical interests towards my religious beliefs. I let him lead.

I admit that God could give humanity progressive revelations, after all there were many Jewish prophets one after another. I know he's trying to get me to admit that Jesus/The New Testament could be part of Gods progressive revelation. Right when we get to that point in the conversation, I say "You know, right now in life I'm just kind of exploring religious ideas and concepts, but later in life I can easily see myself settling down with Gods most recent revelation." There are 10-12 Xenos members on the porch hanging on my every word. The leaders eyes go wide and he says "Really? You'd let God into your heart that way?"

And I reply, "Yeah, I figure I'll eventually convert to Islam, as Mohammed was the most recent prophet of God and the one given the final revelations from the Archangel Gabriel."

Within seconds the porch was empty. I could see through the front window that the prayer leader was obviously upset and angrily speaking to Anne. She suddenly had finished her glass of water (after being gone for 20 minutes) and finished up my haircut within the next few minutes. I never spoke with her again.

All things considered, I got a pretty decent haircut, but I would have rather paid $20 to somebody rather than hear all that religious bleating. Curse my cheap Jewish nature.