Can You Direct Me to the Long Road to Hell?

We've all heard the phrase "You're going to straight to Hell for that", or variations on it.  It's usually used in the context of reacting to something that someone has done or said that is particularly heinous.  Murder is probably the best example.  Breaking into someone's house while they're away on holiday and stealing, inter alia, their brand new flat screen television set will also attract a quick trip to Hell, and I have it on good authority that the phrase might be heard when someone has been stood up for a date or ditched at the altar.  Personally, I think people without handicaps who park in the parking spots reserved for people with handicaps should go straight to Hell (or at least be taken into the street and flogged).

My point is, few would disagree that these sins will or should send a person straight to Hell. What makes me curious, though, is what kinds of "sins" might still send someone to Hell, but via the "scenic" route.  In other words, what would make someone react with "You're gonna wind up in Hell for that at some point" or, alternatively "Looking back, I should have known you'd wind up in Hell for that"?

You guessed it - I have a few ideas on this and over the last week I've been compiling them.   I started thinking about it one day as I perused the donations to a charity food hamper while waiting for the elevator.  It contained two items of note:  a tin of canned ham (the kind that is one step up from SPAM) and some type of exotic dried grain in a worn and weathered box that still bore an actual price tag.  I'm fairly certain that the "best before" date is sometime in the 1900s.  Call me a snob, but I think it's tacky to give poor people stuff that no right-thinking person would actually purchase to consume themselves, or which is one step away from the dumpster, as the case may be.

One of my friends told me about a scandal in her office that arose because someone, in their late nights of dotting the "i's" and crossing the "t's" on a big merger and acquisition file (for which they were remunerated handsomely) decided it was easier to snack on the items in the food hamper than to avail themselves of the on-site catering.  I know people do crazy things after being deprived of sleep, but just as I cannot imagine giving someone else canned ham, I've never been tempted to eat canned ham and cake mix destined for those in need.  This would most definitely reserve a place in Hell for the consumer of the goods.

People who take the office copy of the newspaper into the bathroom to help ease things out, and then leave it there, should probably go to Hell, as should people who steal ornaments off of Christmas trees in shopping malls and hotel foyers just for fun.  Bringing "day old" buns as a contribution to a potluck lunch at the office ranks up there, too.

I expect that the hairdresser who invented the mullet will wind up in Hell, as will the lady who invented tomato aspic.  They may have started out with good intentions, but the results of their actions have been far-reaching and damaging to society in general.  Looking back, it's fair enough to presume that they intended to wreak the havoc that they did.  Few would disagree that they deserve to be in Hell.  They will probably be roommates.

Sure, these aren't the kinds of things that evoke that very visceral reaction that leads us to impose, or at least recommend, a sentence of eternal damnation.  Nevertheless, they are the kinds of things may, at least, make a place in Heaven somewhat less certain.