Hello?

So after a hard day of doing nothing but feeding hungry faces and listening to Rolling Stone music, I retire to the front porch. It is still early so most of the neighbors have not taken a break from working so the quiet between construction and children is appreciated. I grab a couple of cool Coors and my iPad to figure on rocking to roll. There is still water puddle from last nights rain so before I relax I sweep it out to dissipate. Without headphones I start my process of rocking and enjoying the yard activities. I notice some fella cross the street to talk to a neighbor as she came home. I could not hear the conversation but he was unfamiliar to the regular yahoos who live around here. She went into her house and he approached my gate. The usual welcoming to a stranger came next, “Hi, how are you?” A comfortable discussion of the yard and the neighborhood and still I had no idea what he was selling. “Can I come in and talk to you?” “NO!” You do not enter my personal space unless invited and he obeyed. Nice looking guy with grey hair and a blue blazer and kakis pant. He wore the acceptable uniform for this area since time began. “What do you do?” “How is your wife?” “What are you doing with your money?” I didn’t know if Chris (he said his name was) was selling insurance, yard malignance, aluminum siding, financial advice or God. I had no fear of talking to this stranger so the subjects wandered back and forth and unfortunately he didn’t know I’d worked in advertising and knew the drill. After finally getting frustrated he was not making a sell on me, he excused himself to continue to his path up and down the block. Chris was on a mission. He stopped back by and asked if he could leave a flyer and I said “Just put it in the post box. I won’t tell the feds.” He made many notes into his pad probably saying “Asshole at this location. Stay away.” Doesn’t matter none for I’m dry and want to go back to the Tummy Temple before dark because dark is bad and I don’t like bad. So the usual path makes the breathing better and the legs say ‘WTF’. Pick up a few more blueberries, because you just can’t have too many blueberries and another Coors to turn into the ‘health food’ section that is usually free of customers. There was a cute tatted blond staring at bottles of some sort of wonder liquids and seemed somehow confused so I stopped my cart. She smiled and said she was “Looking for….” I acknowledged her cuteness and pointed to the shelves. “That one?” “What about that one?” “Or that one?”. We both had a good laugh and she commented she needed more caffeine and moved on. Thanks for the encounter. Back at the ranch another feeding of the hungry faces and slum down to the social media mayhem. Another Rolling Stone soundtrack eases the day until tomorrow. Sorry Chris, I ain’t buying but good luck.