Boo! BOOOO!

My Mother started to go to Jehovah’s Witness meetings at the Kingdom Hall when I was six years old. It was me and two older sisters that would go to the meetings, my older brother Angel did not. My Aunt began to go the meetings as well. She had two daughters that were around my age and three teenage boys. This story is what my cousins “crazy Eddie” (his nickname) and Johnny convinced me to do at one of these meetings.

One Sunday I sat between Johnny and Eddie. Every Sunday we had what was called the “Public Talk” where a guest from another Kingdom Hall would come give a 45 minute sermon. At the end of this sermon the audience would applaud the speaker. He could’ve been the worst speaker ever; nevertheless, you clapped out of courtesy. As the speaker that Sunday approached his ending my cousin Eddie began to whisper in my ear and proceeded to make his case for a magnificent send off for this speaker. He told me that standing up, pointing both my thumbs down, and yelling “BOO!” was the best thing you could do for a speaker. That would be the ultimate compliment even better than clapping.

I was skeptical of course. Johnny caught my other ear and said the same thing confirming what Eddie had told six year old Ruben as true. They were older, they said it was the best thing, so they managed to convince me. The elevated tone of the speaker gave the indication that the public talk was over and as any well trained Jehovah’s Witness the audience began clapping. Not six year old Ruben. I stood up, extended my arms outward, held both my thumbs down and yelled out “Boo! BOOOOO!” At lightning speed I felt the familiar pinch of my Mother’s nails embedding my ear lobe. She dragged me down the aisle towards the bathroom as I yelled “But Eddie and Johnny told me it was a good thing!”

That was some funny shit.