Discernment

Following through with my complete lack of people skills, I have made a strict stance against my front door and the people that exist on the "other side". My 4 children, however, have either, not been made aware of this or have refused to recognize my pleas to "not answer the door under any circumstance" as ridiculous and unwarranted motherly advice.

At 1:30, a faithful old man, dedicated to pestering busy stay at home mothers, made his way to my front door after having thrust a bag full of hormone and pesticide ridden treats at me the day before. He'd let me know that he would, in fact, be back the next day to yak at me until, out of exasperation, I found something in his catalog that I would be able to store in my freezer until the expiration date came and I was able to throw it out. Piddling away money on unusable items is not generally how I like to spend my time, so my resolve, let him come back after I was able to recycle my copy of the Schwan's (ice cream and frozen dinner delivery service) latest novel, and I would meet him with my front door in front of me.

Persistence must be part of the job application because that man stood behind that door for a good 10 minutes. Strangling my kids was not an option, so it was all I could do to restrain them from removing the only barrier I had between me and the sinister salesmen. There was only one way the man may have thought that we weren't at home. He was deaf. Between all four of our dear dogs barking at a fever pitch, and my 4 lovely daughters doing all that they could to draw attention to themselves in any available window, the man must have thought we were running some type of institution. If indeed he did, it did not deter him from another lengthy stop only an hour later.

Since the previous visit had made all 4 of my darling daughters acutely aware of my unwillingness to open my door for this man, they proceeded to read, at the top of their lungs (for those who could) the side of his truck that had been parked, haphazardly, almost nailing the big yellow fire hydrant in the front yard.

Them: "Mom, he has ice-cream, it says so on his truck"
Me: "Yes, but we don't buy that kind of ice-cream"
Them: "But Grandpa always gets us ice-cream from those kind of trucks, why don't you?"
Me: "Because."
Them: "It's because mom's are boring, and only grandpas and grandmas do fun things like that."

Now, not only was I viewed as uptight and rude for not answering my front door, but I was also denying my poor deprived children their right to a sugar-high. It felt great. It was my only retaliation to being portrayed as a hermit who locks her children indoors. The baby's face was smashed up against the glass, that I had purposefully covered in a thick plastic film when a neighbor had felt led to peer in while I was dressed, most inappropriately, while I was cleaning my bathrooms one day. Feeling like a prisoner in a nut house, I peeked through the little hole at the top of my door, only to see the crazy man waving to my 1 year old. Obviously the film wasn't doing it's job.

So, after 15 minutes of shooing the children into corners, and trying to soothe a most distraught baby, who was yelling "Guy!" in a most frantic voice, he left. It made me half wonder if I just shouldn't have opened the door and told the guy I wasn't interested in the first place, but then I remembered my resolve, and realized it was just the way it should be.