Stay off the grass!

My wife and I live on the outskirts of a small town. Our street isn’t what you’d call a major thoroughfare; however we get more than our fair share of guests.

A year ago an older lady came to our door. For this story we will call her Dorothy. Dorothy said she tried to call her friend (she will be Blanche), who lives on the same street as us and there was no answer. This worried Dorothy to the point of jumping into her car and driving to see her friend. However, she didn’t know exactly where her friend lived. She knew the house and street number but didn’t see it on her way. Dorothy tried calling her friend from our house, but getting no answer decided to follow my advice and drive back down the road to where I told her I thought it was. The next day I drove by the house she was talking about and the number was clearly marked on the side. I sure hope Dorothy remembered where she lived with her Sicilian mother and Rose Nylin.

We were grilling outside on a nice summer evening when a van pulled into our driveway. A man and woman walked over to us and after sniffing our food asked us if we wanted a demonstration of a vacuum cleaner they were selling. I tried to tell them that we have so little carpet, that the way I keep it clean is to scrub our fat cat over the floor, collecting whatever dirt and grime are there, and then beating him like a rug outside. They said it worked just as well on hard wood floors and then proceeded to take out a damn dust buster. Good God! Not long ago we had another guy trying to sell the same type of dust buster… Hell, it might have been the same dust buster. I sure hope nobody bought one of those pieces of crap.

Not long ago our neighbor boy ran over to our house and asked to use our phone because his grandma had just been robbed. I called the police for him. Apparently some woman had pulled into their driveway with an over-heated car. They had grabbed water and poured it on the engine to cool it down. Then the women pushed the grandma to the floor, grabbed her checkbook and ran out of the house.

About two weeks ago a teenage girl came to our telling a story that was obviously memorized about how her and her family was stranded from Georgia. They simply appeared to be panhandling their way through NC.

A while ago the owner of the house across the street (she rents it out) came over to my house with a flyer. Apparently the woman’s nephew was moving into the house and he was starting up a lawn mowing business (I have an enormous lawn and I wouldn’t want to think about how much it would cost for someone to mow it for me). What really struck me about the woman were her teeth. Actually it was her lack of teeth. It made it extremely hard to understand the words that were coming out of her hole of a mouth. I politely took the flyer, nodded several times, closed the door, and then deposited it into my disposable safety deposit box.

On multiple occasions I’ve had Baptist, Methodist, and Jehovah Witnesses at my door. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got an inverted cross on my roof or something and I’m just a beacon for reformers. I don't sacrafice live chickens (although I will eat KFC on occassion) and I don't howl at the moon so back the f#$% off!

These are the kind of things I expect to see if I lived in a city. The thing is I live a mile from the town itself, and it’s not a big town. So I guess the only answer is buy a great dane and leave him on my porch. I have a feeling I won't be getting as many visitors.

*D.S. Trosdahl~~