Crazy Lives Here

This is my neighborhood. It's a beautiful community of 40 year old brick townhomes with azaleas and mature trees and green spaces and quaint, colonial-style lamp posts.



Since this afternoon was an absolutely beautiful Spring day that lured outside, moms pushing strollers, old men walking dogs, and kids playing on the lawn, Mac and I decided to walk around delivering a notice that, in the next few days, needs to be delivered to each of the 500 homes in the neighborhood. We walked up one street, Mac putting the notices through mail slots, me saying hi to others out walking, enjoying the cherry trees and late tulips. There was one slot she couldn't get the folded flourescent green paper through and pushed and pushed, until she realized she was pushing the paper up against a dog nose. She laughed, he moved, and the paper fell to the floor inside.

Then there was the door with the barking lap dog who, when she dropped the paper inside, grabbed it and started attacking. She could hear the paper tearing as she walked away laughing, "I guess they're not going to see that notice!"

And then we came to a house with the front door open. So Mac knocked on the storm door and waited while an old man walked down the hallway towards her, and hollered, "WHAT!", just as he got to the screen. She was so surprised she actually jumped and start stammering, unable to formulate an answer.

"It's a NOTICE!" I said, "From the office!"

"OH. WELL, I'VE JUST BEEN TO THE DOCTORS AND I CAN'T SEE!" (The side effect of which, I presume, must be Loss of Hearing and Rudeness Towards Little Girls). Whatever.

So then we continued on to the next building. Where a few houses up, we watched a woman get out of her car and go into her house, leaving her front door open. Mac approached and saw the woman walking down her hallway so she knocked on the storm door.

"Were not home!"

And then Mac made a gesture with her arms that said, "I can clearly see you standing in the kitchen, letting the dog out the back door." But instead said, "I have a NOTICE!"

And the lady stood in her kitchen, 20 feet away, and hollered, "Not home!", again.

So she put the notice on her doorstep and we left.

(Who will bet me $20 that the woman will call complaining tomorrow that "the delivery girl left the notice blowing free on her stoop.")

And THEN (!), we continued on to the next building, where she got a bleeding paper cut from the notice. And it was stinging. And bleeding.

So we went home, shaking our heads and yelling, "WHAT!" every few seconds.