I am afflicted with the inability to be curt with well-meaning religious types. Or. I don’t know. Once I had no problem with saying firmly, “I’m not interested, thank you,” and closing the door.

But the Jehova’s Witnesses who are witnessing in my area must have caught me once on a vulnerable day. And I stood at the door and humoured them, saying, “Oh, sure I’ll take your watchtower.” I figured they’d go away and that would be that.

I’m naive like that.

They came back with more watchtowers. And because he was saying, “maybe you remember me,” I felt like I couldn’t say, “I do, but now I’m not interested.” Or, “I’ve decided to go to another dealership.” Or whatever. And, a second time, I thought I would just smile and accept the watchtower but refuse to discuss anything and that would be that.

When they came back a third time, I said to Ian, “I’m never answering the door again. That guy has puppy-dog eyes and now that I’m in a rut of not being rude, I can’t do it. You will have to answer the door and send him away.”

Today, while Ian and I were outside, packing up Hannah to go for lunch, a black sedan pulled up, and these two well-dressed young men with puppy-dog eyes got out and went to walk up to the house. But then the guy saw me and stopped and said, “Oh, this is your house, right?” And gave me my magazines.

I took the magazine and said, “Okay thanks then.” And he said, “I can see you’re busy, we’ll go.” And then they got in their black sedan and drove away.

And Ian said, “Oh my god! They came here just to see you.”

Okay, and I know. I know, right? I know that this stupid compassion for the fact that these are people who just think they’re doing what’s right, this is what gets you sucked in to wasting time on humouring someone, and awkward weekend visit door-blocking. And I am irritated. But still, these are people who just think they’re doing what’s right. And if it was a first visit and I was prepared, I would have no problem with saying, “thanks, but I’m not interested,” because I don’t want to waste their time. But they caught me off guard that one time.

And now I’m fucked.