we had a totally beautiful day of perfect sleeping weather.
I generally don't take afternoon naps but this was a day for it. I decided to grab a snooze on the couch and opened a window to enjoy the beautiful air.
I was just at the sleep/non sleep stage of dozing off when there was a knock at the door. I shouted out the window, "If it's political then go away."
A young female voice shouted back, "It's not political."
So I got up, wandered over to the door , opened it and was treated to a "Hi. We're here to get you to support our presidential candidate, insert name here." I have not included the name because I don't want this to turn political. It's not. This is about unwanted intrusion.
My response was simply, "Leave. Now. If you have to lie to get someone to talk to you about your candidate they're not worth a $hit. Leave."
"You can't tell me what to do," she answered in a knee jerk spoiled voice of complete entitlement.
THAT was the clincher. This is my home and my castle. I am king of it and if I don't want you here then you had best leave when I tell you to. I had a number of improvised weapons handy and even a kukri a few feet away but decided against it. I was in no physical danger.
I gave a quick glance for potential witnesses and sure enough there was an older woman standing off to the side. She looked kind of shocked and likely it was because of her partner's "You can't tell me what to do." comment.
Change in plans. The days of simply dragging someone to the curb and being done with it are long over with and a witness meant it would no longer be a he said/she said affair that would go nowhere. Tactically I was at the advantage, strategically they had the edge and I didn't want to win a battle and lose a war.
I wanted them off the premises and simply dialed 911 and asked for a policeman to show up.
The older woman grabbed the arm of the snotty little kid and dragged her off and they headed down the street.
Police response time here is excellent and inside a couple of minutes a cruiser showed up and I met it on the street. I told him what had happened and said, "When she said 'You can't tell me what to do' that made it trespassing so instead of losing my temper and doing what I should have done I called you."
"She actually said 'you can't tell me what to do' when you told her to leave?"
"Yup. That's when I looked for something to use as a cudgel. I saw the kukri on the table also but decided to call you guys instead."
He actually chuckled and thanked me for not hacking someone up or beating them senseless and burying him in a mountain of paperwork and said he'd cruise around and see if he could find them. I gave a quick description of the pair of them.
"If Little Miss Entitlement runs her mouth and tries to talk her way into jail I'll gladly file charges and go to court," I replied. "I've got nothing to do for the next couple of weeks."
He laughed and said that a lot of people talk their way into jail and said if he needed that he's give me a call.
Needless to say, my nap was ruined. Instead I wandered into the garage and fooled around with a couple of things.
A few weeks later I ran into the officer in a convenience store and introduced myself. He remembered the incident and told me the older woman was contrite and did all of the talking.
I tried to apologize for calling them over something that petty but he told me not to bother. He said sometimes it was better that way because sometimes when a person takes it upon themselves to throw someone out he has to take the wrong person to jail.
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Seven years later.
Just before the election a week ago someone knocked on my door and I answered it. When I opened it they handed me a leaflet that I tore up and handed back to them and simply said, "Leave."
They left.
I turned around and just chalked that one off to life in the suburbs.
As a general rule, if you don't have a warrant or Thin Mints I'm not interested. However, over the years I have spoken with a few of the actual candidates and I listen to them until I have had enough.
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