An Invitation or a Badge and a Gun

I feel like I have far too much to say and not the strength to say it right now… so I’m going to deviate right into a "Day in the life of Venomous" post, and tell you a little story instead… and this is something I’m probably going to do a lot in the future… I may or may not at some point devise a system for marking my posts with some form of content indicator. But right now, even the fact that I’m writing on OpenDiary again is freaking me out a little, I don’t have it in me to think too much deeper than this right now…

For years now – in fact, since I moved back from living interstate for a while – I’ve been toying with the idea of printing and laminating a sign to put on my front door. It would read, word for word "This is private property. Unless you have an invitation, or a badge and a gun, you are currently trespassing. Please leave immediately.".

The implication, of course, is that unless the person on my doorstep is a welcome guest of mine, or a member of law enforcement, they have no business there and I want them to get the fuck off my property post haste. This includes but is not limited to door-to-door salespeople, fundamentalist religious representatives bearing propaganda, survey/census takers, nosy neighbors, anybody who wants something from me, anybody who wants to talk to me, and anybody who causes me to have to get up and open my front door.

Essentially, unless I’ve invited somebody over and am expecting them, a family member has died and I need to be notified, or I’m under arrest, I’m vehemently against people thinking they have the right to come to my home and annoy me.

That said, however… in actual practice, every time I hear a knock on that door, or the doorbell ring, I get up and open the door, and not once have I ever greeted said intruder with the words I wish they’d read on the sign I never got around to putting up. Granted, I’m usually fairly curt, succinct, and surly of manner at first if not for the entire time, and if they’re pitching something I aint catching (like religion), I always firmly, though not overty rudely, express my disinterest immediately. But the thing is, I always hear them out. No matter how intruded upon I feel to have to answer that door, I always find myself smiling and nodding to hear what could be so important that they chose to make a living of coming to my house and trying to pitch it to me, before I say thanks but no thanks.

I don’t know why I do this. Perhaps I’m gutless – maybe I don’t have the cohones to insult somebody to their face as bluntly as I would on a written sign. But then I’m fairly notorious for being a blunt, straight up guy – I call a spade a spade, so to speak, and a stupid asshole a stupid asshole. That’s how I am. So that seems an unlikely reason. Maybe it’s a don’t shit where you eat instinct – not wanting to pick a fight right on my own doorstep. I honestly don’t know.

So today, I greet this fellow at my door who is pitching housing developments. You know the deal, "Why are you renting when you could own your own home for about the same in mortgage payments as you’re paying in rent now! Stop giving your money to somebody else and start investing in your future!", that kind of crap. I admit, it was enough to stop me turning my back on him like a Jehovah’s Witness – I’ve always been a very unhappy, grudging renter, and always wished I could just buy my own home once and for all. But that dream remains out of reach. Still, it was enough to have me listen to his sales pitch.

As it turns out though, he wasn’t actually there to sell me a house. At first, I thought he was there to set me up an appointment to speak to somebody who would try to sell me a house. But that wasn’t it either. In truth, his job was to set me up an appointment for somebody to call me on the telephone, who would organize an appointment for me to meet with somebody who would try to sell me a house. What kind of beauracratic bullshit is that? This poor schmuck, he makes a living annoying people at their homes, to make them an appointment to be called by somebody who will make them an appointment to meet with somebody who will try and sell them a house. And I bet this guy, who makes the appointment appointments, doesn’t even make a commission. Yikes.

So, I humored him. He had this little card to fill out with all my contact details, and a good time for somebody to call and set up my appointment. So, I dutifully gave him my housemate’s name, phone number, employment details, and so on, and let the poor bastard chalk up a notch on his route.

I hope after 7pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is a good time for them to call my housemate. ‘Cause there’s no such thing as a good time to call me… =P