RULDS2?

it was the summer of 1995 and my girlfriends and i were on our way to a flirt-filled week in rexburg, idaho at EFY (mormons love their acronyms... and this one stands for especially for youth). and since we were 16 and our parents were totally insane, the four of us DROVE to rexburg from british columbia in a sweet old VW van... alone. as in, by ourselves. SIXTEEN. anyway, not the point of this post. the point of this post is my earliest recollection of what has been dubbed the "mormon-radar"...

growing up on vancouver island, there was no need for the mormon-radar. if there was a mormon on the island, i knew them. my parents had probably grown up with their parents, we attended all the same activities... there was no such thing as "are you mormon?" for me in my early years, because i already knew the answer. so on this little roadtrip, for some reason, something on someone's car triggered the chain reaction in our car "hey! do you think they're mormon? ... i think they're mormon ... hey, how do we find out if they're mormon?" now, these guys in the car were probably from utah and had no clue why we would even care if they were mormon, since everyone they knew was mormon... but for us, it was like spotting a moose in the forest (which i happen to think is pretty cool... but may be a weird comparison to some i suppose. haha). so, we determined that since we were driving down the freeway at 80 miles an hour, our best bet was to make a sign. yes, folks. a sign. so we took a pen and an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper and wrote "Are you LDS?" on it. and we got a positive response. and we thought that was just so great. haha.

so that's my first experience, with many more to come. moving to rexburg for college was like being on mormon-caffeine (is that allowed?)... it was mormons on overload. it was great. everyone was mormon. it was like one big EFY for two whole years. then i moved on to utah... and i've been here for *gulp*... EIGHT years. so needless to say, i have become desensitized to the excitement of being surrounded by mormons -- though, i'm not complaining... i happen to like mormons. :) so, it wasn't until i started to go outside of utah again that i began to realize i had developed a keen sense for detecting mormons.

case in point... i am standing in the middle of the craziness that is the sistine chapel in rome, where supposedly everyone was supposed to be quiet... except the guy with the bull-horn who kept yelling "BE QUIET. NO PICTURES PLEASE. BE QUIET!" again... not the point of this post. so, i spot a woman bending down next to a little girl, pointing to the center of the ceiling, and i overhear her say, "see... there's Adam and Heavenly Father..." BINGO! i know other people say Heavenly Father... but THAT my friends, is what we call a signal. so i poke burton and say "she's mormon", but i don't say anything. about 30 seconds later, i'm standing behind another woman who has a peculiar under-garment line... much akin to my own... and i poke her in the shoulder. "are you mormon?" and she says "YES! how did you know?" and i explained "well, i could see the lines... etc etc" and it turns out she was with the other woman (i KNEW it) and we all chatted for about 10 minutes and they told us we should move to st. louis and move in to their ward... and we were instant best friends. so great. i love mormons.

then there was the mormon encounter at the staten island ferry, which i mentioned in a previous post. and then there was the guy on the metro in DC, on our way home from NY, who was clearly mormon. one word: mesh.

in addition to the mormon-radar, we mormons also have a game called "do you know?" and it is also incredibly fascinating. put two mormons who are total strangers in a room and give them about 20 minutes, and they will walk out with a list of people they know in common. mission companions. college roommates. old boy/girlfriends. they've probably been to the same parties and maybe even dated the same people. i promise you! and THEN give a mormon a blog and they'll quickly discover more connections than you can count.

so... if you're in the mood to sharpen your mormon-radar, here are my top 10 tell-tale signs:

1. CTR rings (more acronyms... CTR stands for choose the right, of course!)
2. married, children, long shorts, sleeves... this combination is a dead give-away
3. wearing more than one layer of clothing in 105 degree weather
4. bright eyes and a perky smile
5. although a rare breed these days... a man still sporting a part in his hair
6. you overhear them ask "do you have caffeine-free diet coke?"
7. virgin cocktails (unless they're pregnant... which could also be a sign)
8. fry-sauce... which is basically just people from utah, but it narrows it down
9. an uncanny need to turn everything in to an acronym
10. horns... ;) JUST kidding... though, i've heard rumors...

happy hunting!