The doorbell rang.
No, wait, someone knocked.
“You get it,” I said. “One of you guys get it, seeing as how I’m not wearing any pants.”
Like puppies climbing over each other to get out of their basket when the mailman rings the doorbell, they all ran to the door.
See, I was going to be painting a table, so I had come downstairs in the teeshirt I’d slept in and a pair of underpants, because I’d planned on putting on my paint-covered overalls, which are in the cellar. And then they’d called me in for breakfast as I passed the kitchen, and so I was sitting in my kitchen at nine in the morning on a sunny Sunday.
I heard voices. “Whoever it is, dude, don’t let them in, since I am sitting here in my underpants, you know.”
“He’s in here,” my wife said.
“Thanks,” the music school director said.
“Would you like some coffee?” my wife asked the music school director.
“That would be nice,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said, and shook her hand, because in Austria it’s polite to always shake someone’s hand when you meet. “Pardon me for not getting up, but I’m sitting here in my underwear.”
She was carrying the draft of the school newspaper I do for them. “Didn’t you get my mail?” She had sent me a mail saying she’d drop by on Sunday, but didn’t give any particular time.
“No, no, I got it,” I said. “Look, would you mind if I went and put on a pair of pants?”
“No, go right ahead,” she said, politely looking somewhere else.
“Would you like milk with your coffee?” my wife asked.
“Yes please.”
“Sugar?”
“Yes, please.”
