LJ Idol Week 10 - If You Have Come Here to Help Me You Are Wasting Our Time
I don't like curtains.
Isn't the point of a window to let the light and the scenery in, not block the view with swaths of damask and chintz?
Mothers-in-law seem particularly disturbed by my lack of window dressing. They also don't understand my refusal to wear a watch or why I don't force my seven-year-old son to get a haircut if he wants to have "hobbit hair" in the winter, but those are other issues we can discuss at a later date.
I suppose my own mother got used to my peculiarities a long time ago but my mothers-in-law - yes, two of them, a former and a current - have expressed their horror at the lack of curtains in our country home - which sits on a wooded lot of approximately 10 acres. To which I reply "Oh yes, it would be terrible if the deer and chipmunks looked in and saw us partaking in our Friday night SCRABBLE ritual!"
Mothers-in-law, your prim disdain for my immodesty is not going to make me put up blinds - or put on a bra for that matter. Well, when you are here I will put on the bra, I don't want to completely scandalize you into a heart attack.
Now, while it may seem counter-intuitive, I also like my privacy. It's why I live out here in the woods in the first place. Perhaps for this reason alone I would never make a good city dweller. I want wide open windows without fear of people staring in. I am a realist though. I concede that if someone does happen to get a glimpse of my bare ass at 2 a.m., bathed in the glow of the refrigerator door as I sneak a few late night bites of ice cream, well, this is my own damn fault for being hard-headed about hanging curtains.
My balanced approach is to live in the hinterlands sans window dressing - and you can come into my yard at your own risk. Not because we are gun owners or anything, but because you may catch sight of my topless mom-body wandering by a window while I'm doing laundry and realized my shirt could stand to be washed too!
The policy has worked quite well for me, 98% of the time. But, there was one morning that made my resolve waver just a bit...
The old house I lived in during college was one of about eight homesteads on a four-mile stretch of unpaved road in central Georgia. One of the best features of the drafty, buggy place was the wall of windows across the front that let in a great view of the wooded yard and the frog pond. Even the front door had a huge pane of glass in the center so the only privacy afforded us was by virtue of the remote location.
I was young and broke so one of my goals was to keep the air conditioner turned off until June to keep my electricity bill down - sometimes a challenge as temperatures rose to the 90's. To stay cool, I chose the methods of liberal ceiling fan usage and minimal clothes wearing.
This was before I had children, so Sunday afternoons were long lazy hours spent napping or sunning or screwing. This particular Sunday, my boyfriend lost in a post-coital coma, I was hanging around topless in my lounge pants, reading a book by the window in the living room. The curtain-less living room with the wonderful wall of windows.
I was fairly engrossed in my story and didn't notice company was coming until my dogs started barking in the yard. Glancing up, my eyes widened in horror.
Three shriveled, old, black women in starched skirts and sensible shoes were marching down my driveway, black Bibles held primly before them like leather-bound shields. The Jehovah's Witnesses had come to call, and Lord, what idolators they were about to discover! I had moments before they would mount my porch and see me, breasts bared like Jezebel tempting King Ahab in the Old Testament.
I may be immodest, but I have enough Catholic shame to realize there is an extra spicy room in hell for people who intentionally scar little old Bible beaters on a Sunday. I began to rise and run from the room so my nudity didn't slay the ladies in their proverbial tracks but quickly realized this was a terrible plan. The wall of windows would have framed my escape like a B-movie on the big screen!
Instead I dropped to my knees, scuttling fast across the carpeted living room floor, staying low as I passed the front door, not rising until I was in the hallway, safely out of sight. I burst into the bedroom to wake my boyfriend.
"Jay! Jay! The Jehovah's Witnesses are here!" I hissed urgently and he opened one heavy eye to regard my panic.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"When they knock, go answer the door. I have to get a shirt on!"
As if brought to fruition by my comment, fervid knocking rang out.
I grimaced, running for the closet, and heard Jay lope out of the bedroom. I glanced back at him in time to realize all he had on were his boxer briefs, but it was too late.
When he opened the door for the Jehovah's Witnesses, all six feet of former-military muscle in nothing but his BVD's, those must have been the most flustered little Psalm pushers on Heaven or Earth.
"How can I help you ladies?" he asked in a slightly smarmy voice.
I could hear stammering and uncomfortable coughs from the porch. I covered my face with my hands to stifle my giggles.
Jay dispatched the ladies post haste. He said they tried to make a go of proselytizing to the nearly-naked heathen before them but when he told them he was happily Catholic they nodded knowingly and quickly beat a retreat to the road.
I walked out of the bedroom laughing.
"Don't think we'll be getting any more of those visits any time soon," he told me.
"Either that or they are ALL gonna come witness over here now" I said, snapping the band of his undershorts.
They did not return, and, although I learned to keep a shirt nearby if I planned to be indecently exposed in the future, neither Jehovah's nor in-laws have been able to make me change my curtain-less ways.
Isn't the point of a window to let the light and the scenery in, not block the view with swaths of damask and chintz?
Mothers-in-law seem particularly disturbed by my lack of window dressing. They also don't understand my refusal to wear a watch or why I don't force my seven-year-old son to get a haircut if he wants to have "hobbit hair" in the winter, but those are other issues we can discuss at a later date.
I suppose my own mother got used to my peculiarities a long time ago but my mothers-in-law - yes, two of them, a former and a current - have expressed their horror at the lack of curtains in our country home - which sits on a wooded lot of approximately 10 acres. To which I reply "Oh yes, it would be terrible if the deer and chipmunks looked in and saw us partaking in our Friday night SCRABBLE ritual!"
Mothers-in-law, your prim disdain for my immodesty is not going to make me put up blinds - or put on a bra for that matter. Well, when you are here I will put on the bra, I don't want to completely scandalize you into a heart attack.
Now, while it may seem counter-intuitive, I also like my privacy. It's why I live out here in the woods in the first place. Perhaps for this reason alone I would never make a good city dweller. I want wide open windows without fear of people staring in. I am a realist though. I concede that if someone does happen to get a glimpse of my bare ass at 2 a.m., bathed in the glow of the refrigerator door as I sneak a few late night bites of ice cream, well, this is my own damn fault for being hard-headed about hanging curtains.
My balanced approach is to live in the hinterlands sans window dressing - and you can come into my yard at your own risk. Not because we are gun owners or anything, but because you may catch sight of my topless mom-body wandering by a window while I'm doing laundry and realized my shirt could stand to be washed too!
The policy has worked quite well for me, 98% of the time. But, there was one morning that made my resolve waver just a bit...
The old house I lived in during college was one of about eight homesteads on a four-mile stretch of unpaved road in central Georgia. One of the best features of the drafty, buggy place was the wall of windows across the front that let in a great view of the wooded yard and the frog pond. Even the front door had a huge pane of glass in the center so the only privacy afforded us was by virtue of the remote location.
I was young and broke so one of my goals was to keep the air conditioner turned off until June to keep my electricity bill down - sometimes a challenge as temperatures rose to the 90's. To stay cool, I chose the methods of liberal ceiling fan usage and minimal clothes wearing.
This was before I had children, so Sunday afternoons were long lazy hours spent napping or sunning or screwing. This particular Sunday, my boyfriend lost in a post-coital coma, I was hanging around topless in my lounge pants, reading a book by the window in the living room. The curtain-less living room with the wonderful wall of windows.
I was fairly engrossed in my story and didn't notice company was coming until my dogs started barking in the yard. Glancing up, my eyes widened in horror.
Three shriveled, old, black women in starched skirts and sensible shoes were marching down my driveway, black Bibles held primly before them like leather-bound shields. The Jehovah's Witnesses had come to call, and Lord, what idolators they were about to discover! I had moments before they would mount my porch and see me, breasts bared like Jezebel tempting King Ahab in the Old Testament.
I may be immodest, but I have enough Catholic shame to realize there is an extra spicy room in hell for people who intentionally scar little old Bible beaters on a Sunday. I began to rise and run from the room so my nudity didn't slay the ladies in their proverbial tracks but quickly realized this was a terrible plan. The wall of windows would have framed my escape like a B-movie on the big screen!
Instead I dropped to my knees, scuttling fast across the carpeted living room floor, staying low as I passed the front door, not rising until I was in the hallway, safely out of sight. I burst into the bedroom to wake my boyfriend.
"Jay! Jay! The Jehovah's Witnesses are here!" I hissed urgently and he opened one heavy eye to regard my panic.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"When they knock, go answer the door. I have to get a shirt on!"
As if brought to fruition by my comment, fervid knocking rang out.
I grimaced, running for the closet, and heard Jay lope out of the bedroom. I glanced back at him in time to realize all he had on were his boxer briefs, but it was too late.
When he opened the door for the Jehovah's Witnesses, all six feet of former-military muscle in nothing but his BVD's, those must have been the most flustered little Psalm pushers on Heaven or Earth.
"How can I help you ladies?" he asked in a slightly smarmy voice.
I could hear stammering and uncomfortable coughs from the porch. I covered my face with my hands to stifle my giggles.
Jay dispatched the ladies post haste. He said they tried to make a go of proselytizing to the nearly-naked heathen before them but when he told them he was happily Catholic they nodded knowingly and quickly beat a retreat to the road.
I walked out of the bedroom laughing.
"Don't think we'll be getting any more of those visits any time soon," he told me.
"Either that or they are ALL gonna come witness over here now" I said, snapping the band of his undershorts.
They did not return, and, although I learned to keep a shirt nearby if I planned to be indecently exposed in the future, neither Jehovah's nor in-laws have been able to make me change my curtain-less ways.