Tuesday 12 May 2009

Exposure

My OH was out last night and at around 8.30pm someone knocked on the door.

I felt slightly nervous.

Ever since four men raided my childhood home when I was 16 and I had to barricade them out of my bedroom (that's a whole other story and not a particularly funny one so I think I'll leave it there) I've been more than a little alarmed by people coming to the door. I'm like some looner who feels 'under seige' at the sight of even a kind looking old lady approaching my house.

There's a Jehovah's Witness called Victor who is particularly pissing me off at the moment. He keeps coming round and asking me if I've seen Paradise. No? Then perhaps he could show me?

Victor, whatever you have to show me, I very much doubt it's my take on Paradise.

His idea of Paradise appears to be a copy of The Watchtower with a woman who looks slightly like Kate Bush running through a field of flowers on the front.

I'm 99.99% certain Kate Bush is not a Jehovah's Witness.

When the lure of Paradise didn't work he tried the 'stick' approach and commented that he could see I was a young mother (ahhh see, trying to lure me in with the 'young' there) and was I aware how EVIL AND CRUEL AND CORRUPT THE WORLD IS? THE WORLD MY CHILDREN WILL INHERIT.

I'm just too polite. Rather than saying 'you are scaring the sh1t out of me just by turning up at my door and knocking, please just leave me a alone', I muttered something about being awfully busy with this corrupt world right now but thank you SO much for sharing this news with me and of course I'd like to read all about Paradise. Then the reading matter goes straight in the recycling bin and then he comes back to collect it... and so it goes on. I've now taken to talking to him through a crack in the window - like a bank teller behind the security screen that can slam down with no prior warning. Where it will all end I don't know.

Anyway the 8.30pm caller wasn't Victor. And it wasn't 4 masked raiders either (thank the lord - or perhaps thank Victor? Who knows).

It was the window cleaner's young assistant who had come to collect his money.

I was so relieved I was positively buoyant.

I stood there gushing about my (wet) holiday, the garden, the children, the strength of the wind and the fact that my husband was out.

The thing is the young man didn't look particularly taken with this conversation. He looked almost frightened.

He kept sort of glancing at me, glancing away, glancing at me again, looking at my house, looking away again. I started to feel more and more self conscious and like 'something was wrong'.

It was only as I handed over his cheque and turned away that I realised that my blouse was partially unbuttoned and I was in fact exposing a large amount of bosom to him. A large amount of bosom spilling out of a bra that had seen younger and somewhat smaller 'days of the flesh'.

It was like something from a Viz cartoon.

Cringe? Yes I cringed.

And I'll cringe even more next time he comes back to clean my windows.



Perhaps I need to try this approach with Victor? At the very least it will provide some blog fodder (although it could also lead to me going straight to hell without stopping to collect a blouse that fits, so perhaps, just to be on the safe side, I won't).

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