Excerpt From "A Christmas Story"

• ME: Do you know who Jesus Christ is?
• The question made me feel a little strange, since I have never been too comfortable with religion. As I always say, Jesus is dead and God is forgiving, so screw everything else and sin away. As a result—in my mind, at least—five minutes after asking a question about someone’s knowledge of Jesus, you’re inviting the person you’re with to drop down onto his or her knees and praise the Lord with you, and ten minutes after that you’re going over to their house to burn their collection of Harry Potter books, which we all know promote witchcraft. And wizardry.
• HIM: No.
• ME: You’ve never heard of Jesus?
• HIM: No.
• This was going to be harder than I thought.
• ME: Have you ever seen a picture of a guy on a cross, like this?
• I drew a quick stick-figure person on a cross, which itself consisted of two overlapping sticks, so that the entire thing looked like a hangman game gone terribly wrong.