2 June 2010 40

I pass by this door nearly every day. A few days ago Sam was counting the house numbers leading up to this door and when my footsteps passed from 39 to 40, I thought, “Oh, I should come take a picture of this door on my birthday.”

So today I did. Right after I snapped the picture, a scruffly-looking fellow carrying a bag of groceries approached us, and gave me a queer, squinty look. Then he passed us and went right up to the number 40 and got out his keys.

Oh, the one time.

I said, smiling, “Oh is that your door I just snapped a pic of?”

He smiled nervously at me and said, “Yeah, well, it’s my mum’s.”

“Oh,” I said, beaming at him. “Well I just love the lion.”

He looked at it, squinted, nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s good.” He said it really slowly, as if at first he wasn’t sure. He fumbled with his keys and shifted the grocery bag from knee to knee and he nearly dropped the bag and the smile.

We turned away from each other. As I walked down the sidewalk to catch up with Sam, I thought, “He bought it! He doesn’t think I’m a crazy loon who’s stalking him and/or his mother. He thinks I’m a crazy Yank who goes around photographing door knockers shaped like animals. How fantastic is that? And how fantastic that either way, I don’t really care what he thinks!”

Let the 40s begin.

And besides, I do think the lion is cool.