DON'T KNOCK ON MY DOOR
by Elizabeth T. Andrews
American Reporter Correspondent
Cartersville, Ga.
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CARTERSVILLE, Ga. -- I wish I could feel delight in my poet's mansion being like Grand Central Station all the time, but I can't. And I wish my place was such a place that someone would one day write: "Her door was always open and she always made you feel all fuzzy and warm in her presence. She could make a cup of coffee seem like a banquet."
But, alas, nobody ever will say such a thing ... unless they lie, for I despise and discourage anyone from knocking on my front door unless it is: A. An emergency. B. They are expected. It seems to me there is something very self-serving about door-knockers door-knocking without an invitation. What if I am having sex with the mailman in the middle of my living room floor? What if I am air-drying my gorgeous body immediately after a shower? What if I am sick with double pneumonia, bird flu and an Asian sinus infection, and the doctor told me to stay in bed for a month? And what if I teetered to the door, dropped dead in the doorway, fell into the intruder's arms ... and s(he) had a heart attack, died, and we both fell off the front porch?
As for making anyone feel "all fuzzy and warm," I am about as comforting as a simpering pot of live oysters.
Poets are notoriously intense and I am the intense-est of the intense. I make people nervous sitting three tables away in a restaurant. I don't know why that is so but I guess it is because I've had a lifetime fascination with why people part their hair on the left side instead of the right side, or on the right side instead of on the left side or down the middle, or just no part at all, and I stare rather intensely at every passerby. Why won't they look at me? Why are they looking at me? What would happen if I gave them the front side of my middle finger?
And I am absolutely horrible with small talk. I really don't want to know how long your recent surgery scar is, and I'm sure you don't want to hear how I spent most of last night in the bathroom, compliments of yesterday's 10 cups of coffee out of cups that had some funny rings in them ...and 12 chocolate donuts.
Yeah. I find it is very difficult to mix my passion of needing to know with my dislike of being told the mundane in order to gain a kernel of the sublime.
It's like asking Aunt Freda if Uncle Charlie is good in the sack while she is expounding on how much salt to pinch into the cinnamon-roll dough. Or maybe it is the cashier at the supermarket who won't look at me as she hands me my change. I've noticed neglected dogs that have that look, or should I say ... that lack of a look ... and I want to say to the cashier "Here's my phone number if you want to talk." But I don't. The last two lines of a sonnet I've been working on for 15 years are waiting for birth, and I can't find my kitchen countertop because the dishes haven't been washed since last Labor Day. If that is not the only day of the year one should work, why do they call it Labor Day?
I take such things seriously and if it's not true, somebody ought to let me know because green stuff is growing in my sink full of dirty dishes and last night I heard a lot of scurrying and squeaking from that corner where I threw the ham bone left from Christmas. I should have put it in the bean soup but on the day I was in the mood for bean soup I couldn't find it. Wonder if I could still use it?
Anyway, back to being a good hostess. (That silly word ranks right up there with "poetess." Why we have to have two words for the same thing is beyond me.) Where was I ... oh, yeah. Being a good, sweet, kind gal whose door is always open to boring people, inconsiderate people, users who need to borrow a roll of toilet tissue (I'm not sure exactly how one "borrows" a roll of toilet paper. I assume they don't return the same roll. It's not exactly like borrowing a lawn mower, is it? But it does compare to "May I borrow a cup of sugar?" Am I getting the same sugar back, or what?)
But I wandered off the subject again. Let me try to explain the rewards in being a grouch who only opens the front door to shovel out the trash.
Reward One: You will only be associating with people you can learn from, which means you get to find out a whole bunch of stuff you didn't know before you invited them over. Take, for instance, that witty doctor who removed my big toenail. The first thing I'll want to know when he gets here is why in the name of fungi did he choose the tending of toes for a career ... and then I will want to know if the toe bone is connected to the ankle bone and if it eventually gets connected to that bone that resides up above his sexy eyebrows.
A word of caution: If you are looking to learn stuff, never, never, invite a politician to your inner sanctum. They all descended from parrots, and they have never had an original thought in their entire lives and if you jar them off their programmed perch they turn into babbling jabberwockies and you have to call an ambulance ... and the guys come with those funny white jackets with the long, long arms. Who's got time for all that junk? Better know who you are inviting before you unbar the front door.
Reward Two: Smart people who can teach us stuff usually don't realize how smart they are because they think all of life is a learning process and if what they don't know was compared to all they do know, they'll be real quick in telling you that they aren't "all that smart." Modesty and intellectual humility are good things to watch for if you are going to pick somebody's brains.
There are a lot of other rewards for not opening your front door to just anybody but, as you sort through who is welcome and who is not, be very sure the invited won't judge you by the way you keep house, or that they won't pass out in your kitchen when you tell 'em to help themselves to a cup of coffee but they may have to wash a cup.
And while they are at it, you might as well ask 'em to wash one for you. No point in both of you getting some kind of weird rash. The dermatologist told me to call and tell him what kind of dish detergent I use ... but I can't find it. I figure the best thing to do is just stay out of the kitchen.
Hmmm. ... One door-knocker a day would mean I never have to wash a coffee cup. A good rash would serve 'em right.
AR Correspondent Elizabeth T. Andrews is based in Cartersville, Ga. Her Website features her columns and poetry. Write her at angels@treefamilyfoundation, or at P.O. Box 816, Cartersville, GA 30120.
Copyright 2008 Joe Shea The American Reporter. All Rights Reserved.