The Big Bad

It was a typical summer Saturday morning for five year old me. I sat in front of the old television watching Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits, eating a bowl of Cheerios. My dad was either at work or sleeping and my mom was out in the front yard, lounging on the vinyl folding chair in the sunshine. She wore one of those strapless, short shorts terry cloth jumpers. Pink, I think.

Anyway, here I am eating my cereal, enjoying Bugs Bunny making Elmer Fudd look like a fool, when my mom suddenly bursts through the side door, a rickety screen that slaps shut without regard for what fingers might be in the way.

“We have to hide!” she announces.

I didn’t protest as she scooped me up, turned off the television, and tucked us in a corner of the room where we couldn’t be seen from either the front of the back door. I guess most kids would feel kind of panicky at this point, but I just calmly continued eating my cereal, scraping the stray Cheerios clinging to the side of the bowl noisily with my spoon.

“Sssh!” My mom gripped my hand to hold me still. “We have to be quiet.”

“Why?” I asked.

Then there was a pounding at the side door, the rickety screen door rattling on its hinges.

“Shit!” my mom whispered. “I forgot to close the door. They know we’re home!”

“Who?” I whispered back, but she didn’t answer me.

There was another round of insistent pounding.

“Who is it?” I whispered, starting to get a little worried. Whoever was at our door was persistent. And my mom was scared enough of them to have us hiding in our own house.

At this point my mom starts shaking with quiet laughter. Now I’m just confused. “Mom, who is it?”

My mom clapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter as another round of pounding reverberates through the house. After a few seconds of following silence, we hear the shuffle of feet telling us whoever was at the door had given up.

“Mom, why are we hiding?” I asked, no longer whispering. “Who was that?”

She looks at me, her eyes moist with tears of laughter, and says, “Jehovah’s Witnesses!”