hi! would you like a granola bar?

Take that granola bar and run. RUN!@

It might be poisoned. Don't eat it.

it is most likely loaded with chemicals to make you groggy and more receptive to suggestion. EAT IT! GO home, eat it and watch cartoons - you will not regret this.

you will not regret this

...unless those cartoons induce you to hit your cat on the head with a frying pan.

i have friends who did this, i am shocked tehy managed to be so banal, even after years of living in the big city. also, hot.

i went to school with kids who would spend thier friday night by the belmont el stop in chicago, handing free cans of soda to people that had stickers w/ bible verses on them.

My high school was across the street from an outreach church. Free coke for the drive home twice a week, pizza every two weeks. But you had to sit through a mini-JesusRock concert for the pizza.

I don't get what the appeal of a free granola bar is. I don't think that granola would win me over to any religion.

They'd have better success with chocolate.

or a beer.

Damn Milo taking my line. . .

that's the catholic lure -- beer 'n bingo

Granola may not appeal to the average New Yorker - but damn do these guys know their target audience!

Two people offered me a granola bar yesterday - one in Hoboken and one in Manhattan. I didn't accept either one, so I didn't realize there was more going on than the usual street marketing campaign.

there was a "prayer station" around city hall park yesterday: blond teens and preteens (seriously, all blond) asking people, "can i pray for you?".

Haha, once we were walking the dogs and a young couple came up to us we though to ask directions or something. Instead they asked if we'd pray with them. We declined and tried to get on our way while they were begging to pray *for* us. I told them we were cool.

it's been going on for a year or so now in manhattan, they seem to come in packs or waves like door-to-door salesman or mormon missionaries.

maybe some rick warren style preacher is in town now or coming soon?

I have accepted quaker chocolate chip granola bars but today's offering was in fact one of those energy bar things, anyway I wasn't hungry.

back in the day the hare krishnas served free food too, plate lunches of gruesome-looking psychedelic vegan glop.

there's a cheerfullness to these people that borders on crepey. maybe a couple steps removed from the moonies old tactics. I'm a bit of a cult nostalgist and this definitely feels like a throwback to college days.

there are a couple of times when i would have gone hungry if not for hare krishna dinners, so i can't be too harsh on them.

the people who really fascinate me are the chinese-speaking mormons (i think?) who set up in chintown.