I Can’t Afford to Answer the Door

Someone knocked on my door today and I didn’t answer it. I do that a lot (or is it THEY who do that a lot. The knocking, I mean.). Why didn’t I answer the door, you ask? Well, I’m glad you asked me that. Because I’m going to tell you why.

If I’m not expecting someone, then more likely than not, it’s somebody trying to sell me something. And frankly, my solicitation quota is filled. For the rest of my life.

And I don’t know how to say “I’m not interested” in a way that ends the conversation right there without shutting the door on them. I don’t even want to have that conversation. I just don’t, okay? I can’t hang up on people. I can’t slam the door on people. So, like an ostrich, I just bury my head in the sand and hope they go away. Otherwise, I’m forking over my hard-earned unemployed dough.

Like just a few weeks ago, there’s this knock at my door. And it’s not just any knock. It’s one of those KNOCKITY-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCKs. The kind where you think, “Hmmm, that must be a friend of mine” because surely, a stranger wouldn’t knock like that, right? In hindsight, I think they are trained to knock like that for psychological reasons. Because we will answer the door, thinking it’s our good friend, Quincy, from down the way, just stopped in to bring us his famous frog leg fudge. And we LOVE frog leg fudge, so of COURSE we are going to open the door, aren’t we?

The other thing is, I don’t have a peephole, so it’s impossible to see who is at the door. And I can’t yell, “Who is it?” because then I’ve just admitted that I’m home and I’m ignoring them. GAH!!!! I’m getting all worked up just telling you this.

So anyway, KNOCKITY-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, and I gullibly open the door to “Hello Ma’am” from this guy: