No wonder doors stay closed these days

I noticed it on a smothering-hot August afternoon during the massive heat wave that enveloped the region this summer. No one seems to come and knock on my front door anymore, not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ever since I plopped Halloween decorations there, even they have fled. Besides, they were all dressed up, sporting stiletto high heels, and I told them they were hurting the earth walking on it with those kinds of shoes, so they dismissed me as too totally crazy to bother with, even to save for paradise.

A small white car with a very tidy-looking, gray-haired lady driving slid to a stop across the street that hot afternoon. This woman, who looked like a retired nurse, scurried across the road toward my door. She appeared to be on a mission. "I've been trying to find the person who lives at this address," she said. She said no one answers their doors in this town and she needs to interview someone for a survey. She kept insisting that she had to record a person for some sort of survey. Thankfully, she wasn't one of those nosy property tax people.

“Say they're there; just say someone lives there so I can say I've questioned someone and can then go home," she pleaded. Growing impatient, I informed her that the interview was over.

Good riddance to nosy people, I thought. Then I started ruminating about it. What did she want? Where did she come from? Too late; she had already taken off. I rode through town on a couple of errands, all the way out to the post office. Small white cars like hers seemed to be everywhere. Behind me, in front of me, I had never seen so many! Finally, I returned home, my mission seemingly fruitless.

I stood on my back porch looking vacantly out the screen door, and then there it was! A small white car parked in front of the house across the alley. I ventured slowly toward it, trying to look unintentional. Just out for a walk in the 98-degree heat. Mulberries from our tree crushed sloppily under my Birkenstocks. The heavy, sweet scent of hollyhocks permeated the air, and wasps buzzed around my head.

The little white car started to move slowly up the alley as the driver spotted me. Busted! Whoever it was, was onto my spy mission. The car finally stopped at the end of the street. Then, as the driver noticed me still walking toward it, just as I got there, it took off again and rounded the corner. I began to walk back home, and then the car appeared again and stopped beside me! The woman rolled down her window. "You again!" I exclaimed. "What do you want?" She said, "I'm from the CDC and am taking a survey on drug use, smoking habits and health practices from houses all over town."

Well, I know that my son Sterling once told my healthcare provider nurse, Mary High, that I smoked peyote buttons on Hermit's Peak in New Mexico in the late 1960s, which wasn't exactly true. Never a smoker of pot or anything else like that, I coughed my way through it to impress my California friends. However, I admit there was an old photo of myself and my beautiful roommate and best friend, Marlene, who looked just like Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. We were sitting cross-legged in front of an incense-burning Buddha wearing serapes. My mother had thrown it away like everything else I valued, but Sterling had heard stories of it once and latched onto the somewhat romantic tintype of the past with the idea that I did this at one time, long ago in my hippie youth.

I'm sure this must have been entered on my medical chart somewhere down the line, because the nurse practitioner upstate asked every time I went in there if I smoked pot. Now, this woman was coming after this 74-year-old years later!

"Just let me come in, and sit down with me and answer some questions," the woman said. "Please! Please, so I can go home; it's hot!"

She added, "If you're chosen for the survey, I'll come back and ask you about a hundred questions. If you are chosen, you may receive $50."

"Would I get paid now?" I naively asked. "No, maybe it will be mailed to you sometime in the future," she said.

Hell, no! No wonder no one answers their door around here anymore. No one wants to entertain a stranger and answer personal questions for an hour. Only the lonely. It's usually blacktop paver men with a batch of hot, churning leftover mix; or hopeful politicians; or those cute, innocent-appearing young guys who say they're from the electric company and want you to sign for something you don't want who stop by here. They usually have a clipboard and name tag, too.

But I've learned my lesson. It's not like the 1950s when my parents' friends stopped by for a game of cards anymore.