and then, we have days like my yesterday

My beautiful new Ms. E was backed into last night as I sat in her waiting to pull into a parking spot at the gym. The reason we even got Ms. E in the first place is because my trusty Civic was backed into, and while it was getting serviced, we started thinking about trading up. That happened Christmas Eve. This happened yesterday, and if you ask me, that’s too close in time for much comfort. After collecting the necessary insurance information from the offending party, I could have just gone home, skipped my workout and paced around like a crazy woman, but instead, I stayed, ran fast and furious, and then felt just fine at home until I got a knock on the door at 9 p.m.

I looked through the top door window and saw a woman and a man standing on my porch. They waved at me like they knew me and so, I waved back. Maybe I did know them, I thought. It was dark and the man was kind of standing in the shadow. I opened the wood door, but not the storm door because it was 9 p.m. for crying out loud and Gus was trying to bark them out of the yard. The woman began right away asking if I was the lady of the house, which made me slightly uncomfortable because I’ve never been called a “lady” before, but I let it slide and answered that yes, I was that lady indeed. She then began telling me about how the two of them were my neighbors and that they were walking around passing out fliers about her business. She reached out to hand me a carpet cleaning flier, which I took and then shut the storm door again. I could hear and see her just fine through the protective glass and something about them just didn’t sit right with me. And though I don’t need another excuse to have kept the door shut, I’ll give you one — by this time Gus was trying to make his way to the porch, too. If the door wasn’t shut, he would escape. I figured she’d just continue her speech and I could look on and nod a lot but instead, she looked at me after I shut the door and with the most disgusted tone I’d heard all day said, “Why don’t you just give me the flier back if you don’t have five seconds to listen to what I have to say.” Shocked, I retorted, “If I open the door, my dog will get out.” She then replied with her hand outstretched beckoning me to return her precious flier, “Yeah, I’m sure.” Okay, by this time, I was really, really angry. I handed her back her stupid flier, and she and her bodyguard in the shadows turned and left. I wanted to yell at her and say that maybe if they had come at a normal hour I would have had more time to listen or that doesn’t she know, as a woman, that it is not safe for a woman to open her door to strangers, especially two of them, during the day let alone at night. I mean, come on! Instead, I slammed the door and then shouted, “I can’t believe she had such nerve.” I was shaking, I mean literally shaking. I think it may also have been the UTI antibiotic that was helping the shaking right along, but she was certainly fueling the fire.