Knock Knock

I open my eyes. The dog on the floor stirs as if my wakefulness has an aroma or creates a silent whistle only canines can hear. The dog in the bed wiggles. The other dog in the bed stretches and shakes his head, long ears thwacking like helicopter blades. What day is it? I sit up in bed, my hair “pineappled” into a unicorn horn of a ponytail, because I read that’s the best way to preserve curls. It’s 6:41 am on a random Sunday. I feel my stomach churn. For so many people, weekends are times to relax, let go, throw caution to the wind. You’ve worked hard all week, after all. Weekends are for throwing rule books out of half open car windows on one’s way to doing something fun. Let’s go to the lake. Let’s go to the beach. Let’s go shopping. Let’s not care about whether the countertops are wiped down or beds are made. Those are concerns for stuffy, weekday adults, after all. But, alas, I don’t have those feelings. For 54 and one-half years, I only have one thought when I wake up on weekend mornings. Visitors (GULP). It’s time for the scary, judgy, vindictive, motley crew called random visitors.

Growing up in rural SE Dallas County in the 70s, there wasn’t much excitement. Marsha’s only child became adept, quickly, at busying herself with things other children thought of as, well, weird. Always one to appreciate a routine, I would map out my nonschool days. Sleep late (the struggle to sleep past 7am is still real), chop apples/ feed the neighbors mule – or was it a donkey, check on my menagerie of animals – people loved dumping animals near Combine, TX (I have always had an internal stray cat magnet), and working on the project du jour: polishing rocks, digging for new rocks, reading encyclopedias, & writing Shakespearean style one act plays for cats and the odd opossum (the midnight show). But, soon, I recognized the malady that would settle over the house nearly every weekend. Though not an affluent family, we lived in a brick house. My father owned a business. My mom was known for her wild plum preserves and delicious ambrosia salads. Such characterizations, it seems, did not come without a steep price. People. We were often caught unawares. One minute, you’d be making a ruffled collar for a cat and the next minute, you’d hear it. Crunch/ crackle/crunch the tires would go on the gravel driveway. Wait. Slam (muffled voices). Slam again. They’re here. We have random, unannounced visitors. Mom would pull every molecule of her thin, 5’9” frame upright, in the middle of the kitchen. Arms crossed, she’d stare down the avocado green refrigerator. Should she pull that ambrosia salad out now, or plate the German chocolate cake she made? No one took a breath. Knock, knock, na knock-knock, knock KNOCK. “Come in. Well, lookie here! Dina, Ted, come in here. Y’all won’t believe who stopped by to visit.”

I have long since realized that weekend visiting is a solely southern thing. People from the north were generally not subjected to this activity. Blame it on simplicity, large expanses of unoccupied land and absence of neighbors, and just plain nosiness, we southerners considered it downright impolite if we didn’t check in on family and close friends. But, in my family, at least, there was never a guarantee that everyone had a working phone line. Calling ahead was unheard of. Even if you did have a single rotary dial with a 50 ft spiral cord in the hallway, there was no assurance the other party would answer and no way to leave word that you’d called, unless you were on a party line and someone 5 miles down the way drove to tell you that their bunion conversation with Aunt Melba was rudely interrupted by your great Aunt Dovey who wanted to let you know she fried 2 chickens and wanted to bring you the leftover drumsticks. There’s no fun in advance warning, either. Southern women, y’all, are a different breed. The fun lies in the unexpected. I can still see the face of my mom’s aunts. Purse tightly held at the waistline and lips pressed together like a prune, their eyes would bounce around the room like a ping pong ball. They were looking for evidence of laziness: crumbs on the counter, dust on the furniture, ashes in the fireplace, fingerprints on the glass. Because, visiting was not a singular activity. You had to leave one house and go to the next. Aunt Floy would leave Momma’s house and head to her sister, Johnnie’s house. “Lord, Johnnie, I swanee. You won’t believe what was going on at Marsha & Ted’s house. Why, Dina didn’t look like she’d had a brush run through that hair in a month of Sundays and I’ve never seen the like of cats running around outside. But, that German chocolate cake was good. I’ll give her that.”

The RVTD runs deep with me (Random Visitor Trauma Disorder). My lizard brain demands certain things: homemade food at the ready at all times, chilled water that doesn’t require ice, candles that look as if they’ve been lit for at least 2 hours, and a face of full makeup. So, even though I don’t think I’ve had a random visitor in 20 years, I get up early most weekends, just to sweep the floor, chill the water, and run a brush through my still wild hair. After all, I gotta keep momma proud.