Photo courtesy of flickr.comThinking of all the houses I've ever lived in, I realized that the only people I really welcome are those who enter by the back door. People who come to the front are often bad news, with the exception of deliverymen bringing flowers or parcels.
Growing up on Woodward Ave., especially, I can't recall any good coming out of answering the front door. In fact, the only people I can recall coming to the front door are Mr. Sinclair, the man who collected for garbage removal, the Watkins man and Jenny and Nip Jackson, who arrived on New Year's Eve.
Mr. Sinclair was benign enough, and the Watkins man was kindly but suspicious, at least to me and Lois who were mean to him, even though he brought little rolls of Life Savers as a bribe for our affections. Momma must have been mortified to hear us chanting from behind the closed bedroom door, "We hate the Watkins man! We hate the Watkins man!" I mean, what did he ever do to deserve such treatment? Maybe we just knew somehow that if he didn't come to the back door, he wasn't a friend.
Then there's the matter of Jenny and Nip, who always reminded me of Jack Sprat and his wife -- he tall and paper-thin and she short and pudgy. They must have been friends of Mom and Dad, but wasn't it weird that we never laid eyes on them except occasionally on New Year's Eve when they would arrive for a not-especially-festive evening that always seemed strained to me. Later, when I was about 12 and they came to our house on Morris Ave., Jenny came in bearing her offering for the evening: diet ice cream! Then she, to my horror, she of the Pillsbury Dough-Boy figure announced that she had brought it "for Nancy"! What the....? Clearly she had no manners nor tact, and she sealed her fate right there, as far as I was concerned, demonstrating once again that front-door people are suspect.
Okay, so I was psychologically scarred by Jenny Jackson, but think about it: Do you really want to invite inside people who show up at your front door?
4 comments:
My front door has been locked for 22 years since I built the house & I don't remember anybody ever coming in that door. The Jehova Witness people try occasionally!!
A preacher made the mistake of coming to our front door! (The pizza delivery guy is the only one who's forgiven.)
Yep. I was going to say that the religion peddlers come to the front door.
But here's what I think is funny- people build these fancy, impressive front entry-ways which no one ever sees because everyone comes in through the garage! That's how they're building them these days- gorgeous foyers that go completely unused while family, friends, and guests come in through the garage and into the laundry room and THEN into the kitchen.
I have seen so many houses designed this way. I think it's funny and a little bit sad.
Everyone comes through my messy garage, past the laundry area and into the kitchen. We just recently fixed our front doorbell after 10 years, because if someone leaves a package there, we wouldn't find it until the next millenium.
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