I consider myself a reasonable woman under most circumstances.
Everyone has limits, however.
We get a lot of door-to-door salesmen around here, and in the summer, 90% of them are selling pesticide services. This is farm country. We have bugs. It’s a fact of life. I generally open the door, check out the logo of some squashed cockroach on the polo shirt of the man in front of me, and politely explain to Mr. Clipboard that I’m not interested. I could expound on how the application of pesticides has a longer effect on higher-order insects and spiders and thus while his poison might decrease the population of some unwanted bugs for a short period of time, the small pests would come back in abundance while the bugs that eat the bugs would struggle, thus making the situation far worse. I could also explain that we didn’t spend a great deal of effort planting milkweed and yarrow and carefully introducing ladybugs and praying mantis just so I could have the pleasure of paying this guy to blow all that work and kill off the beneficial bugs we invited to the yard. Sometimes I do elucidate. Usually I don’t trouble myself. He either already knows or doesn’t care.
Today’s Mr. Clipboard knocked on the door around 4:00 p.m.
Let me key you in to my mental state at the moment of this arrival. Luke didn’t sleep much last night, which means that I didn’t sleep much last night. I’d reckon that I got 3 or 4 hours, tops. Today, Luke and I are both bleary-eyed and the naps have not been forth-coming.
I’m cranky.
After fishing every last trick out of my bag, I had finally gotten Luke down for a nap that I hoped would stick. I’d just made myself a cup of tea and sat down when I spied someone coming up the front walk.
I bounded to the door, but not in time. My couch, where I was sitting, is roughly two meters from my front door. I covered the distance in one great bounding leap and in that small amount of time, this guy not only rang the doorbell but also knocked out 5 or 6 extremely loud raps before I intercepted the door. The bugger must have been using both hands. He looked surprised as I wrenched the door open with considerable speed.
“Whoa.”
“My baby’s sleeping.”
“Oh,” he said, holding a finger to his lips.
Oh, don’t you shush me, @#$%^*!. I’m not the one making all the @#$%$ noise in the middle of the bloody afternoon!
I looked at the logo for Joe Schmoe Pest Control on the predictable polo shirt and leveled this guy with my full stream I’m-going-to-vaporize-you-with-my-laser-vision mother stare. The baby started to cry in the background.
“Go away.” I slammed the door.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Shannon, it’s not this guy’s fault that he woke up your baby. Heck, he didn’t even know that you had a baby. True. He doesn’t know anything about me. So why in the blazes is he knocking on my door! Don’t come to my home, invade my life, and try to sell me crap. I don’t want pest control, citrus cleaner, or a new religion. I don’t want to buy a magazine I won’t read so you can earn points to go to Jamaica. Unless you’re one of my neighbor’s kids, get your order forms off my porch or I’m going to turn the sprinklers on your ass.
What we need is a junk-mail filter for the front stoop. We have caller-ID for the phone. That’s a step in the right direction. I’m waiting for a home-based computer smart enough to scan the logo of the approaching polo shirt for offensive words like “pest” and “bug” the way that my email filter hunts out “viagra” and “enlargements.” Then the sprinklers can queue up and a web cam can capture a picture of Mr. Clipboard retreating down the walkway that leads away from my house, dripping wet and looking sad.
In the meantime, I have posted a sign on my front door. It’s not quite so hi-tech as my front stoop filter, but it will do:
Afterthought:
Shawn came home from work, slightly perplexed.
“We don’t have a dog.”
“Yeah, but they don’t know that,” I said, digging through the cabinets for the sugar. “I figured I wasn’t allowed to say that I would shoot them.”
“I see.”
“Besides, an imaginary dog is a good kind to have. They don’t shed, don’t eat, don’t make a mess, and still scare away salesmen.”
“So it’s kind of like the red blinking light on the dashboard of the car.”
“Exactly.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was pissed off and I wanted a cookie and we didn’t have any, so I’m baking cookies.”
“I see. Way to take charge of the situation.”
“Thank you.”