Saturday, September 17, 2011

Afternoon visitor

Today an elderly homeless man approached my porch and began talking to my front door. I thought he was about to knock but as I looked out the peep hole, he was talking. I couldn't understand him at first. I think he was saying something about, if I needed yard work done.  Just as I was telling oldest to go out and talk to him, he walked down the porch, still talking, back to his wheelchair on the sidewalk. I think he was using it as a walker?

I didn't recognize him, so he must be new to the neighborhood. We get a lot of pedestrian traffic where we live. We see (and hear) quite a few regulars. Last week the same man walked by our home, very late every night, screaming & cursing. One of the nights, again very late, my oldest son and I froze in silence when we heard him stop yelling and his cart stop rolling, right in front of our house. We were both sure we heard walking, up to our front window. The curtains were closed but the windows were open. There was silence as we both held our breath. Finally, after a few moments, his cart began rolling again and we let out a sigh of relief.

This isn't the first time we've had strangers approach our home. One time, years ago, a woman pounded on our door around six or seven am. The Mr. groggily answered, fearing some sort of emergency. The woman, whom we'd never seen before, nearly demanded that she needed to pray for us. The Mr. reminded her how early it was and how strange it was for her to be pounding on our door like that. She finally settled down when he told her she could pray for us, on our porch but he was going back to bed. I don't know what she prayed because I think it was in another language.

Another time, we were having a back yard barbecue for Mother's Day. A woman walked by, again we did not recognize her, and asked what we were cooking. The Mr. and my brother explained we were having a back yard barbecue for mother's day.

"I'm a mother!" she said and asked if she could have a burger. Not really knowing how to respond, the Mr. let her have one, but not until after she also asked for cheese on it. We still laugh about that one.

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