Good Christian Receptionist

When I first moved to Splendaville, my immediate focus was on finding a quality pediatrician who could tell me what on earth I was supposed to do to keep tiny infant Phartacus alive. When it came time to find a doctor for myself, my main criteria was expediency, so I decided to try the one whose office was approximately four minutes from my front door. The four-minute doctor's waiting room featured piped music from the local Christian station, a wall calendar with images of blue skies and fluffy clouds overlaid with cursive Biblical quotes, and a muted television endlessly looping some video that seemed to be about the resurrection of Jesus. I sat down in astonishment. (This is no longer astonishing. My dentist apparently cannot scrape at tartar unless the earth is rejoicing in His majesty.) An old lady dressed neck to ankle in purple polyester, thinning hair an alarming shade of magenta, eyebrows drawn in not quite the right place, signed in at the front desk, then leaned over and loudly told the woman behind it how happy she was that the four-minute doc had found a "good Christian receptionist".  Huh? What exactly did that mean? Could a Jew not answer the phone and schedule her appointment? This was before I knew there were no Jews in Splendaville.

I never returned to the four-minute doc. (The next guy I tried purely based on the terrible reviews from my Bible-thumping neighbor, Burgundy Brenda Rae. He's an old codger who said "bullshit" during the exam, and I've been a faithful patient ever since.) But it wasn't too long after that I received a recommendation for a "good Christian plumber", though frankly I suspect a Buddhist, Wiccan, or even an alcoholic atheist could wield an effective drain snake. And I kept hearing "good Christian" used as a general descriptor. ("He's mid-thirties, about 5'10", sandy hair, good Christian.") I have come to notice that, quite often, when someone needs to tell you that he or she is a "good Christian", it's because you might not otherwise guess.