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We’re all chillin’ in the crib this afternoon when I hear a knock at the door. I pick Lydia up and round the corner into the front hallway, figuring it’s gotta be either a package delivery or my friend Jeremy. Through the door-height window I see that it’s neither, and before I can slip out of sight, the guy makes eye contact with me. Can’t back out now, so I open the door.

Through the storm door I see a team of religious proselytizers grinning back at me. Great. I crack the door and say, “Can I help you?” as I start planning their exit strategy.

But before they can even get through saying “…and talk to you about God,” Lydia sticks her bottom lip clear out, tears up, and starts crying at them rather pointedly. I hug her, and over the noise I say, “Looks like it’s not a very good time.” They give me a little info card and split.

As soon as they turn around, Lydia not only stops crying immediately, but she’s enthusiastically waving goodbye to them.

Aww, that’s my girl. *high five* 😀

6 thoughts on “Get thee behind me!”

  3. During the second year or so that I was alive, my folks lived in a trailer house. It was in the middle of absolutely NOTHING, and I remember very little of that time, except for Dad eating an apple with salt and peanut butter (which is still a favorite), trying to find my shoes once, and the dog (Rinty, a half-coyote, half-german-shepherd, all mean) which I thought was a nice doggie except that he would nip me if I pulled on his ears, and once bit me hard because I wouldn’t let up. Mom arranged for him to move away shortly after.

    Anyway, this was nowhere. REALLY nowhere. Mom was 16, and completely out of her mind from boredom; in the 1950s it was impossible that a *MARRIED* woman with a child (no matter that she was hardly a grown-up) would be permitted to socialize with “high school girls” and of course being 35 miles from the nearest place-of-humans, with only one vehicle, yeah.
    Bored. Oh, and no telephone either. The kitchen sink was not hooked up correctly to the septic so she would wash dishes in a big pan, then toss it out the front door onto the gravel turnaround.

    Well, the Jehovahs Witnesses, sensing that this poor shameful girl with the husband 6 years older than her, and the child who (gossip gossip gossip eight months after the wedding!! Shocking, and of course one of those damnable Episcopalians, gossip gossip count coup)… yeah. They came visiting. Mom was so hungry for conversation that she let them in, even though they kept trying to sell her on their alternative creative translation of the Greek. She tolerated it for a couple visits.

    One day, they came over a bit earlier than expected, and she was hauling the big thing of water to the door, opened it, and tossed without looking.

    They were there. They were drenched.

    She tried to apologize, and offer them help cleaning up, but they all just turned, went back to their cars, and never came back. Which rather proved the degree to which they really thought of her as a friend and a person.