My Strange Encounter

One day last summer after my daycare kids were picked up, I was in the study checking my emails when the door bell rang. I went to the door, opened it, and there stood a young girl about twenty years old. She had a clip board with papers in her hand and she began talking. When she finished she asked me, “Have you ever heard of this before?” Well, honestly she talked so fast and with such a heavy accent that I didn’t understand what she said, so I asked her if she would repeat it. She did, then asked me again, “Have you ever heard of this before?” Well, once again I didn’t catch a word, but not wanting to feel like an idiot and to spare her from repeating it yet a third time I just said, “No, I haven’t heard of it before.” She then confessed, “I’m so sorry, it’s being pouring all day, I’m parched and I’m sorry that I’m chewing gum. I know it’s not professional, but do you mind if I take it out?” I said “no”, and just then she pulled out a huge neon green wad out of her mouth and threw it over her shoulder into the grass and started her spiel again. Stunned that she actually threw her gum in my yard, I said, “Excuse me, but do you mind picking that up so that someone doesn’t step on it?” She then bent down and started looking all around and asked me if I had a Kleenex. So I went in the house, got her a Kleenex, handed it to her and she bent down and picked something up, waded it up and handed it back to me and said, “Do you mind throwing it away for me?” At that point I just started laughing. I took the Kleenex, thanked her but said I really wasn’t interested in what she was promoting. She told me she was sorry, and I stood there and watched as she slowly walk away and down the street. The next day I found the neon green wad by the oak tree, right where I saw it land in the first place.
It was such a strange encounter—a comedy of errors, you could say. But for days afterwards I replayed the scene over and over in my mind: Shouldn’t I have invited this poor parched girl in and given her a glass of water? If I get another chance, I will.