Monday, April 2, 2012

Five Facts for Foreigners - Vol IXa

Creepy Faux Faith Peeps

With the possibility of a meet & greet or gathering of other expats, I couldn't help but think back to the strange run-ins I’ve had with a few expats(?) ...fellow foreigners and/or countrymen... "tourists" of the shady kind. You know: those people that are clearly not who they purport to be...

Word to the wise, as Walternate said in Back to Where You've Never Been (Fringe - S4, E8)... "Everything is not as it seems." Avoid the near Fringe event in the pursuit of finding friends abroad by correctly translating the telltale tip-offs.

Here are the top 5 ways to tell someone's mission's impossible (i.e., totally fake). What they are really doing here, is best left to someone else's imagination. Don't let on that you know anything's amiss, and feel free to make tracks, as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Better yet, here are a few highlights I've gathered in a guide to creating your very own Mission Improbable.
  1. Wear random religious shirts that you and your cohorts picked up at a Goodwill back home. (Make sure you're reppin' at least 3 denominations on opposite ends of the spectrum. Shirts with vague, happy phrases should suffice if you aren't quite sure on this one.)
  2. Claim to be on a missions trip, but don't have a clue about theology, or even which church you are [allegedly] affiliated with (here or there). Be sure to get hostile when someone has the audacity to inquire.


  3. Be 0 for 2 in the 'local church as a liaison in the missions field' category.


  4. Travel sans translator, though no one in your group speaks the language.


  5. Be noticeably high while cruising a local mall with your group. Not-so-covert, furtive glances go a long way, too.


There are only two probable scenarios when presented with these clues: they are either running from something, or running something. Either way, the best thing to do is appear naive, and leave.

It's a wild & wacky world out there. Be safe!



All pics found on Google images.

2 comments:

  1. It is. I'm 99% sure they were running drugs - specifically LSD, as other things are typically trafficked in through other means, and we are centrally located near a region where there appears to be a high demand for this kind of product.

    Only someone using their own product would have thought that this would make a good cover story.

    ReplyDelete

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