Working from home has taught me an invaluable truth: When the bell tolls, it’s not for me.
I don’t answer the doorbell or respond to knocking. Friends and family text before stopping by. Anyone else who disturbs my workday is an unwelcome interruption.
Last month, as I typed away in my home office, I heard a rat-a-tat-tat rap on the front door, followed by the ringing of the bell.
Annoyed, I saved my document and went to the window to see if it was a siding salesman or religious proselytizer.
Instead, I saw two teenage boys trudging up the street, one hefting a weed whacker and one pushing a lawn mower.
They reminded me so much of our second son, who was always hustling for spending money.
One snowy winter when he was 10 or 11, he made quite a bit of cash shoveling snow for neighbors up the hill.
So, when a short time later, I happened to see the two boys heading back down our street, I went to the porch and called them over.
Derek is pretty particular about the lawn and had planned to mow the front yard after dinner, but I made a snap decision to surprise him and hire the kids.
Eh-Mer did all the talking and the edging. His buddy, whose name I didn’t get, did the mowing.
They moved the sprinklers out of the way and put them back when they were done, and they emptied the grass into our yard waste bin and parked it back beside the house.
Our cat, Freya, supervised from the living room window.
After they finished, I paid them the $30 they’d quoted for the job. Eh-Mer thanked me and explained they were earning money for school clothes.
I took his number and said I’d let him know if we needed any yard work done.
Paying it forward for the neighbors who hired my kid when he wanted to earn spending money felt right. Hard work should be rewarded and encouraged.
I don’t answer the doorbell on weekends either, but on a recent Saturday, Derek was working out back and when I heard it ring, I thought maybe he’d locked the front door and needed something.
Instead, I found an older gentleman with an array of birdhouses on our front porch.
His name was Roscoe, and he apologized for disturbing my Saturday afternoon. He said he used to sell his birdhouses at Northwest Seed and Pet, but now he’s going old school and selling them door to door.
It seems Stevens County won’t take birdhouses for property tax payments.
He held up one of his creations and explained that it was a home for chickadees and that they would nest in it all winter.
I told him I needed to check with my husband, which everyone knows is code for, “No, you’re not selling a birdhouse here.”
Calling Derek over to the deck, I showed him two of the birdhouses.
He just looked at me and said, “You have got to stop answering the doorbell.”
But he chose one, and when I went back to Roscoe, he was sitting on the steps.
“I had to take advantage of your steps,” he said. “I have bad feet.”
Freya came to the door, and Roscoe told me he has a blind tuxedo cat at home.
When I gave him $40, he said, “Thank you! Now I can stop at WinCo on my way home.”
Later that evening, Derek found the perfect place to hang the birdhouse that we didn’t need.
I suppose I could invest in a doorbell cam, but I really don’t want another app on my phone.
My old-fashioned method of ignoring unsolicited rings works for me – most of the time.
Besides, if I had such an app, Eh-Mer and his buddy would be missing some cash for school clothes, and I wouldn’t have met Roscoe.
That would have been a loss for the chickadees and for me.
Cindy Hval 