Seeing as how the rest of my family is still out of town, this morning I was kinda bored. I therefore found it fortuitous, if not downright providential (no pun intended) when my doorbell rang. I sprang to the foyer like fucking Batman (the description is apt, I say, if for no other reason than I was still wearing my Batman underwear at the time, and little else) and opened the door to find two well-intentioned young folks blinking at me like moles.
The chick looked sorta like she crawled out of a Lane Bryant catalog from the mid-1970's and the guy was a dead ringer for Buster Bluth from Arrested Development - remember him?
Yup, that's the one.
Anyway, neither of them are saying anything for a full couple of seconds and the whole situation is starting to get weird, so I start in with a hale and hearty "Good Morrow!" and a courtly bow, which spills a little of the beer I was drinking on their shoes. They step back a bit.
"Really sorry about that," I say. "Hang on a second, let me get you guys a beer. Do you want to come in?"
"No thank you," says Buster. "Actually we're here to talk to you about the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ."
"Love that guy," I say. "So are you guys Mormons?"
"No, we're," he says, but I cut him off. It's not out of rudeness or anything, it's just that the house has been abnormally empty for a few days and I'm bored.
"My family's in Utah," I say. "I came back early for work but it was pretty awesome up there. The beer was a little watered down but if you drank like 8 or 10 of them it did the trick. Anyway, I thought the place was gonna be like, Mormon Central but I didn't hardly see anybody riding around on bikes or anything. Hey - where's your bikes? Did somebody steal your bikes - That's fucked up, man. This is usually a good neighborhood, and stealing bikes from Mormons is about as low as you can get."
Lane Bryant speaks up. "Sir, we're not Mormons."
"Well, that's a shame. The Mormons are always good for a couple of chores. Hell, last time they were here they went ahead and fixed my back gate - I was in the middle of screwing a new latch into the frame, on account of my dogs got a little rambunctious... Hey, you wanna see my dogs?"
Buster puts his hands up, a little defensively in my opinion and says "We don't do chores, sir."
I grunt and take a swig of my beer. "I guess that's alright. I'll go get you guys those beers anyhow." Ignoring their protests, on account of I'm always a good host and people will always tell you they don't want a drink or a snack or whatever the first time you offer them one, I turn from the front door. It's at this point that my dogs decide to burst from their upstairs perch and greet our visitors.
I have two pits that I adopted from rescue shelters. One of them is as deaf as a stone and the other one has severe emotional issues, but they're still totally fucking awesome. Their names are Spanky and Gizmo. Here's an actual picture of them playing around.
Now, while I agree they can look a little rough around the edges at times, there really was no need for all the high pitched screaming from Buster - I swear to God, they didn't do much more than circle him a couple of times and maybe try to give paw. In my opinion, if you're going to go knocking on stranger's doors all day you should be a dog person, too. Anyway, I shoo my dogs back inside and crack open two more beers for Buster and Lane Bryant, as I've come to think of them, and a third for myself.
"Sir," says Lane, "We don't drink."
"Oh right," I say. "Because of the whole Mormon thing."
"We're not Mormons!"
"Okay, whatever man. There's no need to get all peevish about your, like, nomenclature or whatever, I got it. But dig, these aren't even like normal beers. It's called a Summer Shandy - they're like half beer, half lemonade. So it's like, totally cool or whatever."
"That does sound good," says Buster. Lane shoots him a look that would have frosted the top layer of my blood if I was on the receiving end of it, and he adds quickly, "But I better not."
"That's alright, I can put them back in the fridge for later." As I run back into the kitchen I hear Lane Bryant calling out something about maybe I should put some pants on, but I don't catch the whole thing so maybe I didn't hear her right, and besides all of my pants are upstairs.
As I come back outside, still in my underwear, Lane Bryant has a copy of The Watchtower in her hand and she's trying to thrust it into my chest as if we're running a West Coast Offense fake pass. I grunt from the blow and unfold it.
"So you guys are Jehovah's Witnesses? Man, that's far out. Do you know Prince?"
"I'm sorry?" says Buster.
"Come on, man" I say "Prince! You know, of like, the Revolution and shit. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to curse in front of a lady or anything, it's just that Prince was like the greatest R&B funk artist of our generation. I mean I mostly listen to like, metal and stuff, but Prince is still the fucking coolest. Damn, I'm sorry - and Damn! I did it again. Have you guys ever seen him or anything? Wait!!! Can you get me his autograph?!! Maybe just the little symbol-doodle???!!!"
At this point Lane is dragging Buster away from my door and snarling over her shoulder at me: "Just read the literature!" as Buster is doing that guy thing where you apologize with your eyes about your girl because you don't want to say anything because... Later, she'll have a thing or two to say to you about that shit.
Poor Buster. He looked like he would have stuck around for a bit, maybe had a beer or two. Maybe some other time.
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