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VOL. 14, NO. 14

 FROM THE
EDITOR

ERIK ALSGAARD

Turning the world down

At the recent Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, a great deal of energy was spent around the issue of reaching out ministering to young adults. One person said (but I forget who a sure sign of my aging brain) that it is one thing to discuss and make motions about young adults; it is another thing entirely to re-order our lives to accommodate them.

Those thoughts came to mind recently after Sheila, my bride, recently purchased a new cell phone. Sheila was trying to buy a phone that did not have a long-term contract, and she finally settled on a Virgin Mobile model.

As Sheila is wont to do, she began to read the Terms and Conditions and Starter Gbwc_superusere that came with the phone. No sane man would have read these booklets, so I am forever indebted to her for what followed.

Right away, it was the giggling that I noticed. On page one of the Terms booklet, there is a blurb titled General. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. The first paragraph reads, in its entirety, Virgin Mobile US, LLCs terms and conditions apply to the services we offer to our customers. Anyone who buys our service and anyone using our service, with or without the buyers consent, are considered customers.

So far, dull and boring, normal legalese jargon.

Ah, but I left off the last sentence of that first paragraph. If youre taking the time to read this, you are probably a customer.

Huh?

And then the third paragraph. Our service is provided at our discretion. We can cancel it at anytime without prior notice. But could you really see us doing that?

But it was the fourth and last paragraph that let Sheila know that this was not the standard, dull and boring stuff no one ever reads.

If you violate these terms we can cancel your cellular phone service without further notice to you. Then we might just send a troupe of battle-trained circus midgets to your house to teach you a lesson.

Seriously. Thats what it said, right there in white ink on red glossy paper. As Sheila continued to laugh out loud, I joined her at the kitchen table as she read aloud the rest of the Terms booklet.

• If your account expires, like if you forget to Top-Up $20 every 90 days, because youve been hiding in a box for the last 3 months, just contact Central Intelligence (Central Intelligence is the term they use for customer support.)

• Virgin Mobile will not directly complete any calls to 1-900, 1-976, or other pay-per-call services. So, youll have to call your psychic friend on somebody elses phone.

• We wont be liable to you for any indirect, special incidental, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages of any kind, including lost profits (regardless of whether we have been notified that such loss may occur) by reason of any act or omission in our provision of services under this agreement (Inhale slowly. Uncross your eyes. Ready? OK, continue.)

• You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Virgin Mobile from any and all liabilities, penalties, claims, causes of action and demands brought by third partieswhether based in contract or tort (including strict liability) and regardless of the form of action. Blah, blah, blah

At the end of nine pages of this stuff, theres a tiny reward. You made it! Yay!

Please dont take this column as any effort on my part to give this phone company a huge advertisement in our paper. This company also charges 25 cents per minute for the first 10 minutes of any call, so even though theres no contract, its not without cost.

But heres a company that has decided, in order to reach a market of young adults, possibly wary of making commitments, that it would take the sacrosanct legalese gibberish that nobody reads and actually make it fun. Heres the front cover of Terms:

NOTICE: The print in this brochure is neither tiny nor illegible, the language is understandable, and you dont have to sign anything like you do with the other guys. However, the lawyers in the cheap suits really do make us tell you this stuff. So, sit back, put your feet up and read on.

What would it look like if The United Methodist Church did that? Perhaps our Book of Discipline would read differently. Perhaps our church bulletins would read differently. Perhaps the conference newspaper would read differently. Take, for example, an item from our June 25 issue that could have read like this:

Nearly 2,000 members, guests and friends of the Baltimore-Washington Conference met June 12-15 at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., for the 219th session of the annual conference. Why they couldnt do all this on-line is still an open question.

Do you see where this could head? Why, the world as we know it might be turned upside down. Right would be left and left would be right; black would be white and white would be black; the first would be last and the last would be

Wait a minute. That last part sounds strangely familiar to me.

Oh now I know. I remember who said that.

Yeah, but thats okay; I dont have to pay any attention to him. He was, after all, just another young adult.