A sect or not is the question

Yup…deff sect-like

Soon after we bought our house in deepest darkest France, we became aware of rumours that we were a sect.

Well, OK. Who knows how these things get started. But...

One wet autumn evening, shortly after we’d moved in, the doorbell rang. We opened to find an unknown man and his dog, both drenched to the gills, on our doorstep. He introduced himself as a neighbour, come to welcome us to the hamlet. We invited him in and it quickly became apparent that he was seriously off his face. Never mind. We offered him (another) drink.

Swaying gently, he launched into a garbled speech about (I summarize) not giving a toss that we were a sect. Which we strongly denied, trying to look as un-sect-like as possible. Which is surprisingly difficult...like looking not-guilty when stopped by the police. He took no notice and continued, slurring: “I’m not like some people, I welcome everyone, even if they ARE a sect.” “That’s very kind, but no”, we insisted, “we are definitely NOT a sect.”

At that point, my niece and her husband, recently back from a Buddhist retreat in India, dreadlocked, nose-ringed and orange-robed, entered the room...

And as if this were not enough, a couple of months later, I made the (big) mistake of recounting this to friends who were staying for Christmas. The next thing I knew, they were all standing on the parapet chanting Hare Krishna at the tops of their voices. Bastards.

Our reputation was sealed.