Who's That Knocking On My Door?

Today's prompt from Writer's Workshop:  1.) Who was at your front door? (inspired by fat mum slim)

As I thought about this prompt, I realized that most of the time, I know who is at my door.  In today's culture, more than likely if you are going to someone's house, you call first.  At least that is how I do things, and most my friends call before coming as well.  I'm a big believer in greeting my guests with a smile and / or hug and I am usually right there as soon as the car pulls into the driveway.

I began to think of times when I didn't know someone was coming. Surprise visitors, so to speak, who came and knocked at my door. And then I remembered ...

A few months after our wedding, my husband had to go away for training for his job.  He was going to be gone for about a week. It seemed a good time because during that same week, I was starting a new job. The only thing was that I was a little leery of spending the evenings alone.  (What can I say?  I was a child bride.)

I decided to ask my cousin Renda (my readers will know her as the girl in the horsefly story) to spend the week at my house.  Renda was still in high school, and I'm not sure what protection I thought she might be in the case of burglars or bumps-in-the night, but she agreed to hang out with me.

After a couple of days, my house began to get messy.  My thinking was:  "hey, the hubby is not home, I am working a new job, I don't feel like cleaning the house."  Renda and I would snack and then pile our dishes in the sink.

One evening in particular, Renda was watching a ball game on television, I was reading.  The house was a wreck. I remember looking around and thinking, "After I finish this book, I'm going to clean this pig-pen up."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.  I went over to the door, opened it, saw who was there, and slammed it shut again. I thought, "I must be dreaming!  That can't be Toni. I haven't even heard from her lately." I opened the door again, peaked out, and sure enough, it WAS Toni.  Toni, my bestie, who lived 1000 miles away, was standing on my doorstep. "Well, gee, aren't you going to let me in?"

I was dumbfounded, "But how did you get here?"  (The nearest airport was 2 hours away.)

"Your Uncle Sammy picked me up," she told me as she came in.

I turned and there was Renda, all packed up and ready to leave. Turns out the whole family was in on the secret.

After I got over the shock and surprise, we had a wonderful time of fun and girl-talk for the next couple of days.

Moral of the story - always do the dishes and keep the house picked up.  You never know who might drop in!

Curious about other front-door stories?  Click on Mama Kat's Pretty Much World Famous Writer's Workshop link here, and check it out.