"NO SOLITCITATION," Indeed

There's a sign at the entrance of our neighborhood which says, in capital letters, "NO SOLITCITATION." I think the extra "T" is probably there to add emphasis. The emphasis is completely lost on our visitors, however.

A couple of months ago, the doorbell rang right when I was getting out of the shower. Jack, as usual, started barking and freaking out. I put on my robe and hurried to put away the dog and open the door, because the thought JUST DON'T ANSWER IT for some reason never crossed my mind. Then I stood there with my hair dripping while a guy (who, because of the placement of the front-door window and the bathroom, may have seen me get out of the shower) tried to sell me cable internet service. We already had cable internet and were completely uninterested in switching providers, but I listened anyway and said why yes, that is cheaper than what we're paying, I'll talk to my husband, thank you very much, bye now.

This Tuesday, around 2:00 in the afternoon when we'd been asleep for a couple of hours and still had hours and hours 'til the alarm clock went off, the doorbell rang again. Jack started barking his head off. I for some reason still didn't think JUST DON'T ANSWER IT, so I put on my bathrobe and was looking as fast as I could for the belt to tie it closed when the doorbell rang again. I found the red plaid flannel belt to another robe, tied it around my fuzzy light blue fleece robe, hurried to lock Jack in the bathroom, and answered the door. The cable salesman was back. He was walking away when I opened the door, but turned around (and saw me in the exact same thing I'd been wearing last time he knocked on our door, and having obviously just woken up, so pretty much looking like a total loser for being asleep at 2:00 in the afternoon.) "I saw your car here," he said, "So I wanted to check back with you about the cable offer." So I stood there and smiled and listened to him again and he went away and I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't again and my whole schedule got thrown off.

The next day, I was exhausted, so I thought I'd be able to sleep through the whole day. Then, once we were sound asleep with hours and hours 'til the alarm clock went off, Jack's bark woke us up. He barked a couple of times then decided that the threat had departed and went back to sleep. I, however, could not go back to sleep. I tossed and turned and eventually got out of bed to try to do something useful. I'm surprised my eyes didn't fall out from tiredness.

When we opened the front door on our way out to take Joe to work that evening, we found the reason I was denied any significant amount of sleep that day:

First someone was trying to sell me cable, now they were trying to sell me grass. $45 to improve the lawn of a rental I'll be moving out of in the next couple of months sounded like...just a great way to spend money.

I printed out a sign to tape to the front door. We're not going to, but it made me feel better anyway.