I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing
Kyria Abrahams
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 1416556842
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
I'm Perfect, You're Doomed is the story of Kyria Abrahams's coming-of-age as a Jehovah's Witness -- a doorbell-ringing "Pioneer of the Lord." Her childhood was haunted by the knowledge that her neighbors and schoolmates were doomed to die in an imminent fiery apocalypse; that Smurfs were evil; that just about anything you could buy at a yard sale was infested by demons; and that Ouija boards -- even if they were manufactured by Parker Brothers -- were portals to hell. Never mind how popular you are when you hand out the Watchtower instead of candy at Halloween.
When Abrahams turned eighteen, things got even stranger. That's when she found herself married to a man she didn't love, with adultery her only way out. "Disfellowshipped" and exiled from the only world she'd ever known, Abrahams realized that the only people who could save her were the very sinners she had prayed would be smitten by God's wrath.
Raucously funny, deeply unsettling, and written with scorching wit and deep compassion, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed explores the ironic absurdity of growing up believing that nothing matters because everything's about to be destroyed.
because we were doing something that would make our mother yell at our father. This might mean that she’d return home from work to discover we hadn’t folded the laundry, had broken a dish, or, worst of all, had burned popcorn. If I ever felt like initiating a good old-fashioned whupping with the wooden yardstick, burning popcorn was a surefire way to reach that goal. It wasn’t that my father cared if the house smelled like burned kernels, it was that now he’d have to listen to my mother yell
lions and eating ripe tomatoes in paradise. The seating was an ergonomic nightmare—ripped cushions that felt like they were manufactured from concrete and shards of glass. An outside observer might have noted that our congregation was very punctual, unaware that we were merely vying for the prime, duct tape–free seating. “These seats are going to kill me!” my father would moan, squirming as we read scriptures evoking the unbearable punishment God would soon rain down upon all evildoers. If we
number nine pocket, Alan!” Barbara yelled as we walked through the kitchen. “Sheba’s hungry!” “Whenever we order sandwiches from D’Angelino’s, we always get an extra sandwich pocket for the dog. She likes the number nines,” Alan told me. “I have to make sure there’s no hot peppers in it, though. That was a day I don’t want to repeat.” Alan’s father, Jake, was sitting on a country-style butcher-block stool in front of his country-style butcher-block kitchen table, drinking out of a highball
babysitting, instead of paying me, she handed me a gold setting with a diamond chip in it. She said it was her first ring, back when she and her husband were poor, and that Alan could give her $25 and call it even. I called Alan to let him know that I had a ring in my pocket and he should come right over with a celebratory bottle of apricot brandy. Then we went for a drive to try to find a parking lot where he could finger me. I liked being fingered because it wasn’t actually fornication but
Although I couldn’t verify it, I was pretty sure that my mother hadn’t been sleeping at night. A week later, while I was drinking alone at home, my uncle called from Tennessee. My father’s siblings all lived down South, and it was always a bit of a culture shock for my New England ears to hear my visiting cousins ask for a bottle of “sody pop.” “Kurria? This here’s Uncle Ronny, Daddy’s brother,” a voice said in a comforting Southern drawl. This was the kind of extended family we had—the kind