* Hear knock at door. Find a challenged young man selling magazine subscriptions through some charitable program. Insist that you don’t want magazines cluttering up your house, especially since he’s not offering any of the very few magazines you’re likely to read, but you will purchase some subscriptions to go to local women’s shelters, youth centers and such. Be assured that these subscriptions will go to the right place. Two weeks later, begin to receive magazines in your mailbox that you had intended for charities. Realize that you’ll be receiving copies of Shape, Ebony, Hot Rod, and various others for the next two years. Groan.
* Hear knock at door. Find ex-con who is trying to get on his feet by trimming trees. Allow him to work, but be repeatedly interrupted by requests for help financing additional chainsaw blades, or ladder rentals, or advice about parole. Learn after he is gone that he dropped a massive branch onto your air conditioner, bending the crap out of it. Groan.
* Hear knock at door. Find disheveled but industrious team of workers with a truckload of “use it or lose it” liquid asphalt sealant they want to apply to your driveway at a discount. Agree to their price, only to be interrupted halfway through their job to learn that your “thirsty” driveway is requiring too many coats, and they need to triple the amount they apply, and therefore triple their price. Grind teeth and negotiate them down. Groan.
* Hear knock at door. Find man who claims to be a local pastor, with a truck full of mulch and a small army of dudes, offering to weed and mulch your flower beds for a discount. Warily reflect on your prior misadventures. Narrow eyes and ask pointed questions about supplies, amounts of mulch, and the “fixed” nature of his “fixed price”. Look wistfully at your neglected, white-trash-looking flowerbeds. Take deep breath, set jaw, and agree to let him do the work, fully expecting to feel like a sucker yet again. Instead, be amazed at the job he does, and the gracious nature of his team. Be blown away the next day when he returns to finish picking up leaves in your yard that he couldn’t take the day before (and which you didn’t know he had agreed to remove).
Reflect on the resilient nature of your faith in your fellow man, and how it is rewarding for its own sake, but even more so on those occasions when it turns out to be justified.