Living Down the Street from the Anti-Christ

On my daily commute well anywhere I get to pass by many houses and business, unfortunately one of the places I get to pass by is the notorious Westboro Baptist Chruch, home of one of the most despicable people in the world in my opinion, Fred Phelps.

I remember all too well when I first moved here from New York I was so happy to be here I had never before this one day heard of this umm bigot we will say. I was driving around town and came to a red light, nothing unusually some people on the sidewalk; they looked like they were waiting to cross the street. Well yes they were waiting to cross the street all right little did I know they had intentions of crossing the street and coming straight towards my car. Mind you I am a white girl overweight nothing out of the ordinary; I was in a white 1985 Ford Crown Victoria, sitting at the red light windows down sweltering from the Kansas heat. While I was listening to music and minding my own business I happened to looked up, mainly to see if the light was green yet, however I was brought to a realization that there were people standing near me with signs in their hands, this was right after 9/11 mind you. I thought they were just some whacko's out protesting, however as I started to read their signs they started to form around my car. I wondered what in the heck that I did to set these people off and just kept saying to myself come on green light where you are.

This felt like it was an eternity sitting there, if these people could have killed me with the looks that they were all giving me I would have been dead 10 times over. Luckily a cop was a couple cars behind me and when he hit the horn they disbursed like night crawlers that were about to be plucked out of the ground scrambling back to the safety of the sidewalk.

That was my first face to face with the credence, and at that time I hoped it was going to be my last. I went home to my apartment on the other side of town and cried into my husbands shoulder for a good half and hour. My husband then advised me about the notorious bigot however he had many other choice words to describe the colorful Phelps in. I had grown up in a small country town graduated with 42 people in my class; I had never even thought that there were people like this in the world. I avoided that street for a long time after that incident. In 2005 I bought my house, my very first home it was a great feeling. I loved everything about it well, ok, most everything it seems that this house was going to put me closer to the anti Christ than I ever wanted to be.

I still was oblivious to Fred Phelps and where he claimed that his so called church and home was, even after living in the town for 3 years. I didn't care in all honesty; I wasn't near enough to him to even let him pass through my mind. Now it is current time, I go to walmart sams club the grocery store, anywhere and there it is with its upside down flag and sign stating www.godhatesamerica.com. I must now live in the middle of hell in my opinion, I get to see the bigots on a daily basis, and almost have their picketing schedule down to a tee which is pathetic, however if I ever doubt where he is going to be with his sheep I just go to his site and take a look. I do not go to church on Sundays because he pickets all the churches in town, Friday I do not go to sonic because that is his location, at 5pm on most any day he stands on the corner of 17^th and Gage, you get the picture. I do this because one day I thought about just hitting the gas pedal on my car and taking him out once and for all, however then I came to a realization that there are more people out there like him, he has many followers and even though he can not go back to California and Colorado because he is banned from there, at least to live there that is, he has friends.

Unless you were lucky enough to have lived under a rock for most of your life, you have undoubtedly have seen or heard of Fred Phelps or his followers somewhere in a town close to you. They get their daily giggles out of protesting at things such as proms, weddings, and sickening enough funerals for people that have passed usually soldiers, that have lost their life fighting for our rights in this country.

When I think about Kansas now, I do not think of Toto and Dorothy, I think about the Anti-Christ that lives down the street.