Today, with the blinds up and the windows wide open on this glorious day, they struck.
Katy did her part, barking madly for what seemed like an excessively long time. I peeked over the edge of the window, hoping the angle and the tint would render it impossible for their preternatural "person home" senses to pick me up. Still, no one left the porch.
Yes, I know. I should open the door, ignore that I am at work, and let them do their spiel, because they really have good hearts. I can't get past the creepy cult lines, the dead eyes, the inability to consider that people are generally never going to "see the light" by being accosted at their doors with pamphlets. And, I'm at work.
Which brings me to my next horror-film move. Right about the time I'm wondering what in the heck they can be doing on my porch, short of jimmying the lock (and bursting into house triumphantly, shouting, "we know you're here!") and Katy continues to bark her head off, the intercom rings in.
Now, Destiny could have no idea she'd decided to call at exactly the wrong moment, when crazed cults were trying to break down my door and needed nothing additional to convince them someone was inside, but ring-in she did. A ring-in means the caller starts talking immediately, waiting for you to repond.
I snatched the phone receiver down to the floor where I was hiding and trying to continue peeking over, and vaguely whispered back to her. ("Help. Missionaries are attempting to kidnap me.") No, actually, I just answered her question in tones that probably made her wonder what in the heck people working from home got to smoke.
I re-peeked after hanging up (very softly, of course) and, as Katy had finally piped down, peeked very, very stealthily. Sure enough, they were now in view, across the street, ringing my neighbor's doorbell. Sadly, unable to warn them via morse code flashes of light from the window of the danger, the door opened. I groaned in that sympathetic "ooooooooo, bad choice" kind of sound only more whispery because I didn't want one of them to rotate their head backwards picking up my scent/sound. Only a minute after that, there appeared to be a prayer circle initiated on the lawn, minus the homeowner/door-answerer, who may have brought this display on himself by some curt response, as they could not have possibly launched too far into their good news about the end of the world before the door was shut again.
The next problem came with what time it was. Only on Thursdays, Sam leaves for lunch at 11:04. The time was now 10:55. They had exactly 7 minutes to get off my street before I'd have punch the garage door open, fly into the car, floor it in reverse, and peel away waving madly and cackling, "Can't catch me! I'm the gingerbread man!"
I also had visions of Sammi's calling my cell phone if I was late, at which point I would have to whisper my predicament to her and be laughed at.
Luckily, they must have started at the end of the culdesac and worked their way to the end of the block I live on, because, although I had regained enough composure to get back in my work chair, I was decidedly further away from the windows than usual and had rolled, crouched, only to discover they were gone. (I am assuming, not in the rapture.)
So I was able to exit the house without sheepishly waving to people who I'd obviously left standing at my door (or, in my horror fantasy, who came shuffling, zombie-like, up to the car window to try and shove a pamphlet through the glass while the car was rolling.)
But as I pulled away, I did note with some fascination the tiniest of paper, barely visible from the outside of the house, shoved in the crack of my door.
When I got back, here was the view from the inside:
No rolling up was going to do here, no sir. It was necessary to open the booklet to the most important page, and shove the thing vertically so that the receiver would be involuntarily sucked into reading about the topic du jour: the devil's facebook. It worked. Apparently the Apostle Peter himself had some important things to say about social networking. Who knew? People who answer their doorbells, obviously.
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