May I help you please?

It's been a few months since I've been bestowed (if that's the expression I'm looking fore) with the honor and the pleasure of putting my daughter to sleep. As time went by, the ritual has become more complex rather than simplified ( which one would hope for since my baby's turned 2 and 1/2 today- yippy).

Anyhow, it involves reading book(s), +/- telling stories, +/- singing Eh's song, moma's songs, abba's songs, baby's songs, +/- singing stories, etc, etc, etc. I've recently discovered that if I park in my daughter's bed, I may not necessarily speed up the going to sleep process but I typically make it more comfortable for myself ( and take a nap as a bonus). To do this, I get into my lounge clothes.

Tonight, after about 45 minutes dedicated to the ritual I finally came to the kitchen to eat dinner. After being snuggled under a blanket for a while, airconditioned kitchen felt like a walk in fridge so I quickly put on the first available cover up which came to view. It happened to be my freshly washed labcoat with my name and rank on each side of the chest and my beeper, pens, and other miscellaneous goods in pockets.

I barely got a chance to sit down and eat when there was a long buzz. Silently cursing at a realization that I again forgot to put the sign "do not ring bell after 7 PM" I asked who's at the door. The voice replied "your neighbor, Connie Green." I thought I heard wrong because I couldn't remember any neighbors with that name combo plus I expected the usual mumbling for charity. So I asked again who's there and got the same answer. So I asked my neighbor to wait one minute, quickly looked for a buck and went to the door.

When I opened the door I'm not at all sure which one of us was more taken aback- me who saw my 'neighbor' or the neighbor who stuttered a bit with her (i'm sure much repeated) speech upon seeing me at the door.

I'm not sure whom my neighbor expected to see at the door, but I'm almost sure it didn't include a woman in a green headscarf, orange tshirt, brown skirt, betty boop fluffy slippers and a bit weathered white lab coat buttoned all the way down with a $ bill appearing ouf of one of the overstuffed pockets.

I wonder if it would scare her off from ringing strangers' doorbells after 9 pm?