"I Wanted to Talk about Business."

Here's the story in a nutshell.

Last night at approximately 11:50 P.M., I heard a car pull into my driveway, followed a few seconds later by a knock at my door. When I looked through the window I saw a 20-something Caucasian girl, a little pudgy but not unattractive, looking a little lost. What I mean by "looking a little lost" is that she looked like she was going to visit friends and had come to the wrong house. She didn't look dangerous, so I went ahead and cracked the door open.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You live here alone?" she said.

I told her I was alone at the moment, but that I have one - sometimes two - roommate(s).

"Well," she said, "I wanted to talk about business."

I assumed she was from somewhere in the neighborhood and told her I didn't want to talk about business without my roommates around. (Call me naive, but I thought she was wanting to split internet costs or something.)

"Why do they need to be around? I'm talking about you and me doing business."

It was then that I got the first inkling of what she meant, but I went ahead and asked anyway. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you and me having sex."

I closed the door before I even finished saying "No" (some of my friends were disappointed at this, but when a girl is selling it door to door, there's probably disease in them thar hills!) and my first thought was Holy crap! Door to door prostitution! It's one thing to be propositioned at a gas station or something -- which happened to me on Airline Highway in New Orleans once -- but this girl came to my house in the middle of the night!

At first I was amused, so I called my roommate to tell him what had happened. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that her first question, "Do you live here alone?" sounded like a prelude to a robbery. It wouldn't surprise me, really. The house where I'm living isn't visible from the road, making it an ideal target for thieves. Not wanting to take any chances, I drove to Wal-Mart and called the police from the parking lot. They came out, filed a report, and said they'd patrol the street throughout the night. I finally got to sleep around 5 a.m. Today I'm looking into getting a gun permit and missing my old dog Annie like hell.

That's pretty much the whole story. What a gift for a writer to have a life where strange things seem to happen all the time.

Note: I texted some of my friends about this incident earlier today. These are some of the more priceless responses:

"I'd love to know what her sales pitch was!" - Lamar Daley

"The economy is really sucking!" - Wendy Bell (can't spell her new last name off the top of my head)

"Did you ask her if it was her annual 4th of July weekend sale?" - Ashley Brown

"I bet the police operator was like, 'Dude, come on. Just do her. We'll drive the cops by to make sure you're okay in, say, 1 hour?'" - Dane Ball