Over the weekend, I happened to read A Potential Problem, by Jennifer Groepl, on my iPod Touch. I’m not usually a big fan of YA
(though now that I think about it, the Harry Potter books and the Hunger Games trilogy are YA, aren’t they? Maybe I should stop saying I’m not a fan of YA.)
but I ended up staying up ’til midnight to finish reading it, and now I’m anxious for the next in the series to be available. This is what’s truly awesome about the e-book revolution (if I can cheesily call it that), that you get to read well-written books like this one for a mere $2.99, and (or so I’m hoping) you don’t have to wait forever and a day for the sequel to come out.
Definitely worth a read; check it out.
So, I was laying on the couch catching up on my vitally important Real Housewives episodes (I am not loving New York this season ’round), and there was a knock at the door.
Now, the TV (and the couches) could not possibly be closer to the front door. And most days I don’t open the blinds that hang behind the couch where Fred sits, but on this particular day I had, because I wanted more light to come into the room. The front door has a beveled glass design in it, so whoever was knocking could likely see through the glass that the TV was playing – if they couldn’t hear it. And if I didn’t answer the door, it would have been a mere three or four steps to the windows over Fred’s couch, where whoever was knocking on the door could peer in through the window and see that I was watching fine quality entertainment, AND that I was laying my lazy ass on the couch surrounded by 130 cats.
Besides that, our neighbor had come over the night before to ask Fred something, and so I thought perhaps it might be she who was knocking on the door to interrupt me.
I was trapped, in other words.
So I pushed 78 cats off of me and stood up, and went to open the door.
Was it our neighbor? Why, fuck no it wasn’t our neighbor. It was some guy holding an ADT sign and possibly (I don’t recall exactly, but it seems likely) wearing a polo shirt with the ADT logo on it.
“Hello,” he said, and offered his hand to me. I was taken aback for a moment – here in the South, it’s HIIIIIGHly unusual for a man to offer his hand for a handshake; in fact, I don’t think it’s considered proper etiquette CAN I GET A HOLLA COUNTESS LUANN, DAHHHHHHLING – but after a slight pause, I shook his hand.
Now. If you are GOING to offer your moist hand (yes, it was close to 100 degrees outside, and no, that doesn’t stop from being judgey because I was minding my own goddamn business when your moist hand knocked upon my door) for a handshake, it would behoove you to not lay your moist hand in MY perfectly cool and dry hand as though your hand is a dead, limp, moist fish. It would behoove you to shake hands properly. PROP. ER. LY.
I know what you’re going to say. “But Robyn!” you are exclaiming. “What about my arthritis! My old and aching joints cannot take the pressure of a handshake!”
To you I say, THEN DON’T OFFER YOUR ARTHRITIC CLAW FOR A HANDSHAKE AND IF A MOIST AND LIMP HAND IS PRESENTED TO YOU, GLARE UPON IT AS THOUGH YOU ARE MORTALLY OFFENDED. Really, does a moist and limp hand that lays in your hand make your arthritis feel better?
I suspect not.
So Mr. Moist and Limp set off the “I don’t care if you’re here to give me ten million dollars from a dear departed relative I never knew existed, I want nothing to do with you” alarms in my head, but I set my face in a polite listening pose and I waited.
Such a great deal Mr. MaL wanted to offer me. He wanted to put the ADT sign in my yard so that if my neighbors’ homes were broken into, they would see the sign, and it would cause them to call ADT to have a home security system installed.
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.
For allowing them to put the sign in my yard, they would give – I SAY GIVE – me a $1,300 home security system. For my own home.
FOR FREE.
“Wouldn’t you agree that that’s a good deal?” said Mr. Moist and Limp, who was now rather sweaty.
“That sounds fabulous,” I said.
He stared at me, perhaps trying to decide if I was sincere (I was not). He inched slightly closer to me, perhaps already counting his commission.
“But you’d need to talk to my husband,” I said. “I don’t make any kind of financial decisions in THIS household.”
He stared at me, and then stammered for a moment before I took pity on him and told him Fred would be home after 6:00.
I cringed through another limp and moist handshake, and then he was gone.
I was upstairs with the kittens that evening around 6:15 when I heard a knock on the door. Fred wasn’t home – he was supposed to be when I told the guy he’d be home after 6:00, but he later found that he had to work later than expected. I didn’t answer the door, and the guy hasn’t been back.
You better believe I’ve left the blinds behind Fred’s couch and on the front door closed ever since.
“What’s she doing?”
“Eating our Babycat. Isn’t she purrrrty?”
“Where’s she going?”
“I dunno.”
“This one needs a bath.”
“What? She was hungry!”
Coriander gets hissy with Ciara.
“What the – ?”
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS, BUT IT’S SKEERY.”
“You know, I’m not really sure what I think about all these little – Ooh! Babycat! Pardon me while I belly up to the bowl!”
Macushla keeps an eye on Cilantro.
“Where’d she go?!”
I had no sooner uttered the words “I’m pretty sure the McMaos aren’t nursing any more” than they apparently took my words as a challenge.
I love all the different stripes.
Poor Maggie. She puts up with so much from these little brats!
Even at too old for this nonsense, they are utterly adorable when they nurse.
In the doorway between the hallway and dining room. (Hey, that’s appropriate, no?)
She’s had just about enough of THIS.
“Do you see? Do you SEE why I’m always hungry? They’re sucking the life out of me!”
Maxi and Newt, in the side yard. Newt spends almost all day either in the side yard or in the house. Maxi spends most of the day off to points unknown, then moseys back home mid-afternoon.
Previously
2010: Fucking flies.
2009: Brian graduates.
2008: No entry.
2007: “UGH. I HAVE A DEAD BIRD IN MY HOUSE AND I TOUCHED IT!”
2006: Do I know how to live large, or what?
2005: It took me a minute to get it. Duh.
2004: Have I mentioned that I have a big ol’ crush on Roland? Yeah. There’s me, being geeky again…
2003: Still no Fancypants.
2002: Well, did you feel the earth crack open?
2001: I guess not everyone is as much a wimp as I.
2000: I feel like I spent all day running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off and got nothing accomplished.