Saturday Morning Disrupted

'Ding dong, ding dong, ding dongggggg.....' This was the sound I woke up to this morning. A young girl in our neighborhood has the habit of ringing our doorbell 20 times if we don't come to the door. If she can't get ahold of Heather, then she comes to my house. So, at first I ignored it but the ringing was persistent in invading my dreams. At first, I really thought it was our little friend again. So, I rolled out of bed, preparing to give the girl yet another lesson in doorbell etiquette.

I should have looked before I opened the door. I always do. But this morning, the grogginess of my sleep impaired my judgement. I open the door to find a vaguely familiar man. 'What'? I asked in my broken Hindi. He proceeded to tell me that I needed to give him money. 'why'? I ask. He started rambling something about sweeping my porch and I needed to get him money for it. I said "no". He starts to get agitated. I said "no because you woke me up with your dinging...." And he said " I wanted you to hear me'. And again I said, "no".

Now, he may very well be the sweeper of my porch. I am not sure who does that job. But I wasn't planning on giving this guy any money or any more of my attention, Especially not at 7am on a Sat morning. He kept being persistent for money. When I get hard pressed, my mind clamps up and I can't think of what to say. A mix of Spanish, English and Arabic usually flows out of my mouth. I started to close the door...and this is where he really crosses the line. My screen door wasn't full latched and he starts to come in. I grab the door, slam in in his face, lock it and scream at him to "Jow'!! (go!)

My heart beat fast as I assess what just happened. 'Its ok..its ok...'I tell myself. The guy really probably just wanted his money. He felt like he had a legitimate reason to harass me. But, it scared me. The unknown of his intentions scared me. Not being able to fully communicate scared me. Fear turned to anger and then back to fear. I started thinking about all the things I could have said to him. How dare he invade my Sat morning. I started thinking about what someone said back home. They said, "when you go overseas, leave your sense of entitlement in America, don't bring it with you". I try to remember this. I am not entitled to anything, even on Sat morning. But this guy invaded my sense of control. Its not that I felt unsafe. I could have easily gone screaming like a mad woman to any of my friendly neighbors, our chokedar (guard) or to basically anyone and they would have helped me. But I didn't like feeling out of control. So, I took a shower, drank some coffee and read a book because these were things I could manage. As I sat, I was reminded of the One who is ultimately in control.