Ding-Dong!

            Greetings, WYMOP fans!

Ding-Dong!

Your mailman is at the door. It’s me, Rob, that poor bermuda-shorts-wearing bastard

who needs to collect a signature from you again. Or maybe I have a package I want to get in out of the rain. Or maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses are out in the neighborhood again, and they’re closing in, and I just want to get inside and lie on the floor like the rest of the household, pretending nobody’s home until the danger has passed. Whatever. You need to answer the door, and there are certain things that should just not happen when you do so. There’s actually a ton of things you shouldn’t do, so this is just a partial list.

Don’t answer the door while restraining your dog.

Look, I know you love your dog. You love dogs, period. I love them too. But if you’re holding Sparky’s collar and he’s actually dragging you forward, your feet sliding across the

carpet like some slow-motion water skiing scene, barking and snarling and slavering—and he’s just a 9 lb Pekingese or a Boston Terrier—take the hint. Sparky wants to kill and eat me, possibly (though not probably) by humping my knee to death, and there’s really no way you’re going to work the pen, the paper, and the savage beast, all at the same time. And if Sparky is something a little

bigger than a Corgi, like, say, a Doberman, or a Mastiff, then you won’t have to worry about letting me in to avoid those Witnesses: I’ll pee myself to death right there on your doorstep.

Don’t answer the door while stoned.

Yes, whatever I’m trying to get you to sign is probably important. Yes, the agents of the Watchtower are closing in, and my fight-or-flight reflex is revving my engine like I’m a

dirt track hero. But no, it’s not going to help me at all if you’re going to open the door, ask me who I am, introduce yourself, ask me where to sign, flip the card over, ask me where to sign again, flip the card over, ask me where to sign again, blast a Dorito burp in my face, giggle an apology, then ask me who I am and introduce yourself again. Then flip the card over.

1. I’ll cry.
2. If I’m looking for a signature, I may have to just bail on you right in the middle of your story about the time your brother’s best friend’s cousin’s uncle’s half step-sister and you went to the store for milk, possibly killing your buzz.
3. If I’m running from sober-suited folks wielding Awake! like a weapon, there is the slightest chance I may wind up charging toward them, sky-clad and bearing your head on a stick, asking if they’ve met my Dark Lord. Panic does funny things to people, and I might try fighting fire with brimstone.

Please don’t answer the door naked.

Okay, this one’s got a qualifier: unless you’re a 21-26 year old swimsuit model.

So as you approach the door, I don’t care if you’re male or female, ask yourself: Am I a 21-26 year old swimsuit model? If the answer is yes, then smile and throw that door wide. The human body is a beautiful thing, and at the very least I’ll get a blog post out of it.

However, if the answer is, No, I’m a 68-year-old retired fisherman, with a strange and disturbing skin rash beneath random patches of wiry and none-too-clean body hair, who may not smell bad, necessarily, but does smell a lot, and has decided that those spaces where I’m missing teeth are the perfect places to store food for later . . . then no. Please. Please no, for the love of God, just leave me out on the stoop to face my fate.

Yes, Mr. Russell, I’m sorry, but I’m talking to you.

That’s all I can come up with for now. I can’t get the images of Mr. Russell out of my head. The last time he opened the door he was naked . . . and stoned. And apparently had some sort of  . . .of . . . man-part infection . . .

I have to go lie down.

I’ll talk to you later.