Even before the blue cloud surrounded the house, I was very sorry I had knocked on the door.
My sister, Ann, and I used to manage several rental houses for landlords. One day, we had to deliver a notice to a late-paying tenant to either pay up or move out.
These have to be hand-delivered to the unit, and we thought that meant knocking on the door and handing the form to the tenant.
What innocents we were.
By then, the air was turning blue. The only clean words were, “Hey, get back here, Foofie.”
I knocked, intending to hand over the form. When the tenant didn’t respond immediately, I started taping the paperwork to the front door.
Then the door flew open. The tenant stormed out, grabbed the paper, crumpled it into a tight ball, and threw it on the ground. “I don’t accept notices on my door.”
She said a lot more, but I filtered out the swear words.
Then she bolted into the street, chasing a little dog that scooted past our ankles. A dog she wasn’t supposed to have.
I stood at the front door, coughing from the blue air, and watching the tenant darting around the street like a defensive back trying to tackle a quick-footed running back. Foofie kept skittering just out of reach.
I enjoyed the entertaining romp for a moment, but then I remembered my vulnerable position on the front step. I smoothed out the page, taped it to the door, and sprinted to the car. I was ready for a fast getaway, but Ann said, “I’m not moving until that dog is gone. Just what we need is to run over the dog, too.”
We finally escaped through the blue cloud. After that, we flipped a coin to see who went to the door. No knocking. We did a tape-and-run.