Mrs. Betty Bowers is a better Christian than you. Sorry to be the one to break it to you. She and I both speak the truth in love, but Betty speaks it in a fabulous outfit, so you know it’s true.
No sidewalk protest in front of a women’s health clinic would be complete without at least one of Betty’s disciples. Let’s call her Bitty – a Betty-In-Training. While she will not be a better Christian than Betty, it will be immediately clear to all present that she is a better Christian than the rest of you chumps.
As a better Christian, Bitty will not hesitate to scare the Jeebus out of anyone, especially the meekest among us. Toddlers coming with moms to the clinic don’t appreciate the finer points of sidewalk protest rhetoric, so when Bitty warns the mom that babies are killed in there, the toddler doesn’t realize that Bitty means teeny wads of cells barely big enough to be called embryos instead of babies. Toddlers leave an encounter with Bitty looking like they are being marched into a death camp. Which Bitty assures them is true. Sweet dreams, kiddo.
Mrs. Betty Bowers subscribes to the Texas truism the bigger the hair, the closer to God. It’s not an aura, it’s Aqua Net!
Bitty, however, appears to have fallen down on the job as far as her hair goes. If I hadn’t chopped off her feet in the picture, you’d see she also let down the side with her shoes. While they were black, matching the shirt, they were also sandals. Solid sandals with a sensible sole and comfort webbing.
Shudder.
It may be humid and pushing 95, dear, but this is October and sandals are strictly beach shoes. And those nasty sensible shoes … well, if all ladies wore those, that would put Planned Parenthood out of business. And then on which sidewalks would you spend your mornings?
Bitty broadcasts shame and disdain with an arch of her eyebrow and a curl of her lip. The other protesters will be a little scared of Bitty, and she likes it that way. She judges them, too, for their lack of piety and fervor, to be sure, but also for their bad posture.
The second of several Profiles of a Wingnut – character sketches of the sketchy characters I have encountered while volunteering as a clinic defender at Planned Parenthood. You can read the introduction to this series here.
nonsequiteuse 