We had a very unusual experience this week. Let me preface this by saying that we live out in the boonies, on a private road, and the only two houses on our road belong to us and my folks. We have a no trespassing sign clearly posted at the entrance of the road, because we're cranky old farts.
Anyway, while we were gone one afternoon, my dad reports to us that some lady in an SUV pulled up to our home, banged on the door, and when she got no response she went all around our house, I assume to see if we were on the property somewhere. *You just DO NOT do that here. It's NOT done. Period* Dad can't chase people out like he used to, but he yelled at her as she came back up road. She told him she couldn't reveal why she was looking for us. That ticked Dad off something fierce.
A couple of days later, we hear a knock at the door. It's the same lady, an older broad, maybe mid-sixties with silver hair. Heavy southern accent. She says she's contracted with the gov't for
this survey. The minute she says gov't, I block the door, with Noah right behind me. I'm not letting her one foot inside our home. Noah is on full alert, and not happy.
Well, she proceeds to tell us her pedigree, where she lives, and who she descended from. She yakking a mile a minute, trying to find some common ground with us. We're just nodding and trying not to be super-rude. She says she hates ObamaCare. She hates the gov't. She's proud of all her ancestors who fought for the South during The War of Northern Aggression. Says she has the Stars and Bars hanging on her wall at home. Starts babbling about guns, and how the Yankee bastards will have take hers barrel-first.
I feel like I'm either in a time-warp, or that this lady is fishing for our sentiments on these matters. We don't know her. She doesn't know us. She has to know she's flirting with danger by approaching rural homes in this area. Noah and I are a bit more welcoming than some of our fellow Ozarkers, who would have escorted her off their property with a firearm and a snarling dog.
We were not chosen for the survey. Surprise surprise. We didn't get that cool thirty bucks in cash for sharing our drug, tobacco, alcohol, and mental health information. If this lady is for real, she's a kook. I freely admit that it occurred to us that she was an information-gatherer (apart from the "survey") and that we popped up on some agency's radar. Noah is an evil veteran, and I'm a conservative blogger. We've attended a Tea Party rally or two. I write to my congressman and my senators, and I'm not shy.
Then again, maybe we're just paranoid. Either way, the whole thing was freakin' creepy.
