You can take your kool-aid, your nikes, and your e-meters, and go elsewhere.

I live like, two store fronts down from a mysterious "store" that is never open, which boasts a sign in the window reading "HOLY WAY MINISTRIES.". Just now, as I was standing across the street, waiting for the dude from the Jalisco to come back so I could get some cigarettes and a diet coke, I noticed that the lights inside were blinking on and off. Naturally, I started to panic a little bit, because I'm just like that and I have a rather vivid imagination. Naturally, as soon as the guy comes back and I get my cigarettes and my diet coke, I go across the street and announce to my friend who works at Cleo's and is outside smoking, that the weird store is blinking and freaking me the fuck out. Naturally, I decide that I am going to play Nancy Drew and investigate, because I'm just curious like that. I must have answers.

This is what is in the window (besides the sign)

- Weird strobe lights from Spencer gifts (including the stop sign that I totally wanted as a part of my decor in 3rd grade)
- Books about Jesus
- A christmas tree
- A picture of Santa Claus
- Tweety Bird's head
- A giant divider wall type thingy preventing me from successfully seeing inside.

I have come to the conclusion that this is either A) a cult, or B) a front for the mob. I'm leaning towards A.

I have a long history with cults, in case you didn't know. My mom had to drag me away from Hari Krishna's offering flowers at Logan Airport a number of times- and... I was once rejected from a cult. I am still bitter about this. Allow me to explain.

Once upon a time, I, like many girls at age 15, was convinced that I was indeed the next Bette Davis. I signed up for an actor's studio class at a place called "Magnum Opus" in the next town over from mine. The studio's claim to fame was that the woman who ran it had once played Marian the Librarian in the touring production of The Music Man. Nothing about it was especially weird at first, as far as I could tell- not any more than any other place I'd taken lessons, anyway. The weirdest thing is that they felt really importantly about my quitting smoking, which I had no intention of doing.

So, anyway, there was like, one straight dude there around my age, and boy, did I think he was dishy. He was in the advanced class, and I totally had plans for us to be madly in love- which I imagined would happen during a production of "Desire Under The Elms" in which I would play Sophia Loren and he would play Anthony Perkins.

However, fate threw a wrench in my dreams, when, after class one day, as my parents were picking me up from class, we all witnessed the dreamy boy get pulled into the back of a van and driven away while a lot of people from the studio yelled after him. We were told that he had come from an abusive family and had been hiding out at the studio to escape them. My dad called the police to report it on his car phone, and I sat in the car and pouted. Because I was deep like that.

I never saw the dreamy dude again. Then, a couple of weeks later, I went to class- only the studio was gone. All the furniture was gone, and there was a sign in the window apologizing and saying they'd left town.

A year later, I opened up the paper to read a story about a creep sex cult. A creepy sex cult that masqueraded as an actor's studio- called Magnum Opus. Apparently, the dreamy guy had been like, brainwashed or something, and was being rescued by his family when that whole thing with the van had occurred.

The thing is- no one even tried to brainwash me. And I'd like to say that this was because I was so clearly strong willed or something- but dude, I was 15. I was retarded- as so clearly evidenced by my Eugene O'Neil plot. I've always felt that it was because they thought I was either unattractive, or because I wasn't a good enough actress. I mean, they could have at least made a gesture of brainwashing, if only to be polite. Everyone likes to feel wanted.

Moving on. My third experience with cults was the time I was asked to leave a Scientology Center. See, this one time my mom and I were having cocktails at some outdoor cafe in Toronto, and across the street there was a Scientology Center advertising free "personality tests."

"I'll give you 50 bucks if you go in there and get one. Swear to god. 50 bucks. Do it, it will amuse me!" says my mom. So, of course, I do- because it's 50 bucks, and she's right, it will probably be hilarious. I go in there, and they hook me up to an e-meter. The guy asks me some questions like "Do you sometimes feel stressed?" I manage to mumble something about demanding to know how many body thetans I have, and then start hysterically laughing so hard I started to tear up and got a stomach cramp. Naturally, they asked that I leave.

I am wanted by no one. At least no one in a cult. Which is why I am so resentful of the one that has taken up residence a few storefronts down from me. They will never let me play their reindeer games.