Dear Snarky – My Boss is a Go Fund Me Tyrant

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dear_snarky_logo-1Dear Snarky,

 I’m about to either quit my job or get fired over this issue. My boss is aggressive and relentless about fundraising for her kids’ activities. Last year, I bought almost $300 worth of cookies, candles, magazines and candy.

Now, she’s really turned up the heat and is asking her staff to donate $250 to a Go Fund Me page so her 16-year-old daughter can raise money for a Europe trip with her high school French club.

 Hell, I’d like to go Europe, but I wouldn’t ask the people who work with me to pay for it.

I feel like I need to stand up for my co-workers and myself and just say no, but I’m afraid it could cost me my job. I know I can’t get fired for it, but I can see my boss starting to give me bad reviews etc.

 What would you do if you were me?

 Signed, Going Broke

Dear Going Broke,

 Don’t take this on yourself. There is safety in numbers so you need to get as many co-workers as you can to commit to 1) Going to H.R. and letting them know that the fundraising pressure is causing a hostile work environment and 2) all of you need to say no to the Go Fund Me page.

If your boss questions you about why you haven’t made a donation honestly share that your family is tapped out on charitable giving for the year and quite possibly the next decade.

 Because here’s the deal as long as you keep caving in to this pressure it’s not going to stop. As you’ve learned yesterday’s $5 box of cookies is today’s $250 Go Fund Me donation. What’s next helping pay for her kid’s college in couple of years?

Stay firm, stand strong and stop the staff extortion.

*If you have a question for Dear Snarky “21st Century Advice With an Attitude” write me at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com or send me a private message on my Snarky in the Suburbs Facebook page.

 

Your Kitchen Predicts Marital Bliss

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screen-shot-2016-09-26-at-1-16-24-pmAll sorts of online quizzes claim they can help you narrow down or hone in on what makes a successful marriage. I just took one and it was ridiculous.

The questions were all about feelings. Trust me, feelings don’t determine a marriage’s long-term stability.You know what does? Packing tape.

Specifically a roll of packing tape with one of those built-in tape rippers.

In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that if you want to take a “will our relationship last?” test, all you need to do is go to your kitchen. There in your junk drawer, your dishwasher and fridge are all the keys to predicting long-term marital success. Let’s start with the tape.

Ah, the sweetness of a love never tested by a demon-possessed spool of packing tape.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who use tape and then fold it under, and those who don’t. The non-folders let the tape go rogue, thus ensuring that the next person to use the roll is left using fingernails to a) find the start of the tape and b) scrap off shards of tape all while decimating the integrity of the roll.

If a tape folder and tape “roguer” decided to couple up, beware of the tape folder having a crying jag in the kitchen that can lead to the folder throwing the roll at the floor in sheer frustration and “accidentally” hitting the roguer. Few relationships are strong enough to endure the clash of such tape-disparate personalities.

Another couple trouble zone is the dishwasher. It’s a psychological profile like no other.

Do you wash your dishes before loading them? Do you have a system based on rocket science for achieving maximum spray thrust for each dish and therefore have a precise location for each plate, glass and pan? Are you so OCD that you have been known to secretly reorganize the dishwasher after it’s been loaded by someone else?

If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, than flee like you’re being chased by a giant Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Detergent pod from anyone who is “OK” with putting a greasy, non pre-treated, saucepan on the top rack. Your relationship, if it lasts, will be a fraught with peril and teary arguments and accusations about you adoring Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning products more than your significant other. (P.S. If loving Clean Day Lemon Verbena dish soap is wrong, I don’t want to be right.)

If you want to explore the depths or your partner’s childhood feelings regarding money and mother issues, the refrigerator is a stainless steel monument to repressed emotions.

The one and only thing you need to observe is if your significant other is a food hoarder. Do they save one single, solitary olive and put it in lock down in a plastic container in the fridge? Are food expiration dates open to interpretation? Is produce that’s seen better days still “good” because “you can make a smoothie with it and no one will be able to tell that difference”?

The fridge hoarder grew up with a parent who, in a quest to never waste money, could not throw any food away. An early relationship warning sign of this type of behavior is if your partner has a mother with a freezer or extra refrigerator in the garage or basement.

If you see both a commercial fridge and freezer big enough to hold an 18-wheeler full of ice cream then I would recommend you seriously rethink your romantic life. This food-storage psychosis is a sign that if you walk your relationship down the aisle, your love will be saving a lone Tater Tot in a snack size Ziploc till death do you part.

Another indicator of relationship compatibility is the silverware drawer.

What couple can find true happiness when one has zero interest in finding out why the repository for clean silverware has crumbs in it? Even when you clean out the crumbs, they come back. Is it aliens? Is it invisible mini snackers living in your kitchen who are homesteading in your silverware drawer? The mind is boggled.

The good news is that some marriages, despite these seemingly insurmountable odds, can still succeed — flourish even. The key is to have your own packing tape, to never load the dishwasher while anyone is watching, to always eat the last Tater Tot or olive — and to clean out your silverware drawer, even daily, if you must.

There’s no reason you should let some crumbs crush your relationship mojo.

 

 

Dear Snarky – My Daughter’s Dorm Roommate is Running A Hotel

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screen-shot-2016-09-23-at-10-35-00-amDear Snarky,

My daughter is a freshman in college and is going to a school in a very expensive city. Since school has started her roommate’s family has been using the dorm room as a hotel. So far, her roommate’s mother has stayed for week, then an aunt with two nieces came for almost a week and then the mom came back with grandma where she asked my daughter to give up her bed for the grandmother.

 This is not a helicopter parent thing at all. The family is coming to the city and doing all the touristy things and the dorm room is basically a Holiday Inn. My daughter is miserable. A room the size of postage stamp and was never meant to house up to 5 people. Never mind that no kid goes away to college and wants to be roomies with a grandma. 

 How do we handle this situation without it becoming hostile?

 Signed,

One Ticked Off Mom

 Dear Ticked Off,

 Your daughter needs to go to her floor R.A. and call the University’s housing department and report what is going on. From just a safety perspective the number of people living in the dorm room is a fire hazard. Also colleges don’t like their housing being used as a permanent hotel for out-of-town guests so, trust me, they will shut that down.

 When all this comes to a head your daughter needs to tell her roommate that all she did is ask if there was anyway another bed could be put in your room because she felt badly that the roomies family was having to sleep on the floor.  Also I think that the roommate will be grateful. She may not show it, but I’m sure she will be doing inner high fives that her mother, grandmother, and assorted cousins have been evicted from her college experience.

I would also advice your daughter, while she waits for the University to take action, to start Operation Remove Relatives. She needs to be disgusting – belching, farting, fake vomit, ragers in the dorm room – basically creating a hostile hotel environment for her roommates relatives. What are they going to do about it? Report her to university housing? Um, I don’t think so. 

Good luck and let me know how it all turns out!

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Snarky – My Son’s New Teacher Was My College “Friend With Benefits”

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frightened-woman-1960s

 Dear Snarky,

I’ve had the shock of my life. At back-to-school night I found out that a guy I repeatedly hooked up with in college is my 5th grade son’s teacher! He’s new to the school and has a very common last name so I had no idea my kid’s teacher was my back-in-the day friend with benefits .

 Do I immediately get my son out of the class or do I suck it up and spend the entire school year feeling very awkward? To make it even worse my son is thrilled about having the school’s only guy teacher.  Help!

Signed, WTF

Dear WTF,

 By doing simple math I’m guessing it’s been more than a decade since you saw this guy. So, that’s loads of time for this not to be that big of a deal. Greet your college friend, have a good laugh and move on to the homework policy.

If you don’t think you’ll be able to get over the awkward phase and you’re married then this is a wonderful opportunity for your husband to get more involved in the teacher parent component of elementary school.

 Now, if you and your “special” friend parted ways very badly or if you know something about this man’s character that is a red flag for him being your kid’s teacher you’ve got a problem.

 The hardest part of removing your child from the class is what to tell the principal and I hope it’s not “this dude was my hook up buddy.” I’d be prepared for some gossip to get around because you don’t know what your former flame is going to say when someone in the teacher workroom asks, “Hey, how come little Trevor is now in my class?”

 This is why if you decided to get a new teacher you have to be professional and keep your mouth shut. No chatter with friends about your past history with the man. And remember even if you do go the new teacher route you will still see this “friend” on field trips and at other 5th grade events which is, again, another great reason for your husband to take on some on those responsibilities for you.

Bottom Line: I don’t think this teacher conundrum will be that insurmountable of an issue unless you make it one. So don’t.

 

*If you have a question for – Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude – write me at snarkyinthesuburb@gmail.com or send me a private message on my Snarky FB page.😉

Pumpkin Pervs

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unknownWhen did the scent and flavor of pumpkin become a fetish?

It’s just September and already I’m sick of hearing women rhapsodize about their freaking pumpkin spiced lattes and how long they’ve waited for their pumpkin and what an ordeal it’s been going without their “PSL.” I’m certain, like 100 percent certain, some of these women have never spoken about their spouses with such longing and enthusiasm.

If that wasn’t enough to make me anti-pumpkin, I get a Bath and Body Works coupon in the mail basically inviting me to slather myself in pumpkin from head to toe.

There’s a sweet cinnamon pumpkin, caramel pumpkin, pumpkin apple, pumpkin cranberry cider, pumpkin cupcake, pumpkin berry crumble, coconut pumpkin and a marshmallow pumpkin latte. Am I the only one thinking why in the world would a grown woman want to go around smelling like a marshmallow pumpkin? And wouldn’t a marshmallow pumpkin be a Halloween Peep? Who wants to smell like that?

And what about that pumpkin berry crumble? What if the exfoliating agent in the soap is actual crumble? That’s just not right. It would like eating dessert in the bathroom and have we as a society reached that level of gluttony – multi-tasking sweet shower snacks? But that’s not even the thing that is really messing with my mind. Pumpkin coconut is. Does that even go together? It just sounds wrong.

It’s not that I don’t like pumpkin. I do, but a couple of years ago you would make some pumpkin bread and a couple of pumpkin pies and that would be about it. Now, it’s a pumpkin palooza. Last month, in the death grip of summer, I was already seeing multiple lists online for the “Top 10 things you can do with pumpkin.”

There shouldn’t be a pumpkin top ten. There should be, at best, a Top 2. You can eat pumpkin and you can carve a pumpkin for Halloween. The pumpkin, from the proud squash family, was never meant to be decoupaged with Mod Podge and used as a repository for the toilet paper roll in your downstairs half bath.

I blame the internet for creating this current siege of pumpkin mania. Mainly because compiling Top 10 lists is the click bait that makes the internet go round and round. Once pumpkin got a starring role, it was doomed, as in pumpkin coconut doomed.

Imagine if the internet was devoid of Top 10 lists. There would be barely anything for us to click on and hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of people whose sole job it is to make up lists of random crap would be out of work.

It might even be the beginning of another economic downturn or, on a positive note, it could lead to an age of renaissance on the internet. Think about if you never had to see another Top 10 list. Would your quality of life not improve? Mine would.

For example, I recently clicked on the “Top 10 list of things people over 40 do that make their houses look old.” Guess what was on that list? Lace doilies. Do most people born after the invention of Lycra yoga pants even know what a doily is? Can you imagine anyone in the 21st century strewing lace doilies throughout their home?

Heck no. Who in the hell is writing this stuff and why am I clicking on it?

About that clicking, have you noticed once you get to the site it’s so full of ads that you can’t figure out where to click. Finding the arrow to get to the story is the internet version of “Where’s Waldo.” (Some of the ads are disturbing. They always seems to be about a medical abnormality or how to fix crepey skin.)

It’s laid out so unless you’re a digital genius guess where you end up clicking? Yeah, the crepey skin quick fix, which, by the way, sounds dreadful.

This is what’s happened to the pumpkin. It’s been over-clicked and now gobs of people think that they must lust for anything remotely pumpkin. The kick in the old jack o’lantern is that most of the things that say pumpkin are in reality pumpkin-free. Take the pumpkin spiced latte. Allegedly, after customer dismay of it being totally non-pumpkin, it now has a “small amount of pumpkin puree” which probably means less than 1/100th of a teaspoon.

I’m ready to bring back the sanctity of the pumpkin.

It deserves better than its current status of smells like pumpkin or taste like pumpkin, but not really pumpkin. Someone please stop me before I do something I’ll regret. Yep, I want to compile a Top 10 list of why we need keep the pumpkin in pumpkin.

Where’s Miss Manners When You Need Her?

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screen-shot-2016-09-07-at-12-58-24-pmWhy aren’t people saying anything?

They have to be about to lose their mind. I know I am, but you know what, I’m going to let someone else take control of this situation. I’m not even going to give the person the evil eye even though I so very desperately want to do not just the evilest of eyes, but shout at the top of my lungs, “Hey, idiot. Stop it!”

That’s it. I can’t do this. I’m just not that person who can meekly look down at their laptop or phone and pretend that the very thing that is going on is not going on. I even did the timer thing. You know when you tell yourself that if something is still happening in 10 minutes then that’s the sign that you defiantly need to do something. Well, I just hit the 10-minute mark. Jesus, take the wheel, I’m going in.

Okay, that did not go as well as I hoped. I think I needed back up.

 No, that’s wrong even with back up I would have still failed. There’s just some idiots that are too big of idiots to grasp the concept of “Oops, my bad.” So to all the passengers by Gate 4 in the Southwest terminal in Dallas, to you I say I’m sorry that I was unsuccessful in my attempt to silence the boorish man who was laying down on the floor with his phone on speaker and having a yellversation.

I say yellversation because even with noise-canceling headphones on I could hear this dude like a preacher at a tent revival. Even after I changed seats and crossed over to the Gate 3 seating area, his voice was still an auditory triumph in vocal projection.

Can’t you see now how I had to say something? It was my duty to the traveling public. Never mind that when I went over and suggested very kindly and using my best Southern accent, (I was in Dallas, after all) with an overlay of cotillion etiquette that he 1) take his phone off speaker and 2) modulate his tone that all I got for my effort was that he talked even louder … a feat that I didn’t think was possible.

If you’re rolling your eyes right now and thinking, “Ugh, this lady is complaining about people at airports again.” All I have to say is, “Yes I am, because when you witness behavior this egregious, it demands being called out via any means necessary. And hang on, because my story gets worse, and here it is.

To escape the phone screamer, I decided to chill out in the ladies room. Surely I won’t be able to hear him in there what with the toilets flushing and hand dryers. As I was walking to the bathroom I noticed I was headed in the same direction as a woman who I had earlier nicknamed the hand sanitizer queen of Big D. (What? You don’t give random strangers nicknames?)

About 30 minutes earlier, when I was sitting at a table adjacent from her at the Whataburger inside the airport, she pulled out a Clorox wipe and cleaned off her table and then got out four little bottles of hand sanitizers and went to town on her arms.

I’m talking the woman scrubbed from fingertips to elbows. Is she planning on doing surgery or eating her Whataburger double with cheese? Now, I realize she could have a compromised immune system and needs to be very careful about germs so I, in the spirit of being a good co-human, took out my buy three-get-one free Bath and Bodyworks Cherry Berry Burst hand sanitizer and also did the elbow to fingertips routine.

It turns out we are both going to the ladies room and the line is, of course, long.

So, it ends up that I go into the same stall she has just vacated and I’m immediately grossed out. This woman has peed all over the seat. Ugh, she’s one of those. The “I won’t sit on the toilet seat because it has germs, but I’ll squat and tinkle everywhere” woman. Is there anything more of a middle finger to the world than the germaphobe that in their quest to remain bacteria-free has no care or regard for the rest of humanity’s needs?

I immediately relocated to another stall and before I can begin to meditate about the human stew that is air travel, I hear something. Oh no, it can’t be. Yep, the yellversation guy’s voice is permeating the walls of the ladies room.

The only thing that could be worse is if the yeller and the tinkler are both on my fight. And, of course, they were.

Dear Snarky – Betrayed By The Boss’s Daughter

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96eb8c5cc47579cefcd193f7d9e7aec6Dear Snarky,

 I’m 25-years-old and work for a family owned business. Over the summer the owner’s 20-year-old daughter worked with me in the marketing department. We hit it off and even hung out together some after work. But when she went back to college things at work got weird. I think she told her dad everything I had confided in her about the company. Two people who I complained to her about have been fired and I get the feeling I’m next.

 Should I text her and ask what’s up because right now I’m feeling angry and betrayed?

 Signed,  Thought We Were Friends

Dear Thought We Were Friends,

Here’s some Life 101 advice – the boss’s daughter is not your friend. She is, first and foremost, the owner of the company’s child and that is where her loyalties lie not with you. I would bet your soon to be severance pay that she did indeed tell her dad, probably verbatim, everything you blabbed.

So, update your Linked In profile and start sending out resumes, because even if you don’t get canned you probably need a fresh start somewhere else. Take with you to your new job the lesson that you need to keep your gossip about people you work with to other people you work with to a minimum and most assuredly do not make the mistake of ever thinking that any of your boss’s relatives are your BFF.  That, my friend, will bite you in the butt every single time.

Sure we all complain about our job and our co-workers, but the ideal person to bitch to about that is someone you don’t see everyday at the office. Remember, today’s co-worker can be tomorrow’s boss.

*If you have a question for – Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude – write me at snarkyinthesuburb@gmail.com or send me a private message on my Snarky FB page.😉

Dear Snarky – I’m Being Mom Shamed for Not Being a School Bus Stalker

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Dear Snarky,Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 10.51.25 AM

You would not believe what is happening in my neighborhood.  There are 10 kids at our bus stop and a couple of moms have taken it upon themselves to “police” the bus. This means that everyday they take turns following the bus in their car to make sure it gets to school safely and then they group text everyone that the kids made it to school okay.

None of this makes any sense because we have had zero problems with the bus or the driver.  It doesn’t stop there. Yesterday a mom got on the bus and rubbed down a couple of seats with antibacterial wipes.

Yet, I’m considered crazy because I refused to volunteer for a “follow the bus” shift.  I still get the group text, but the moms will say snippy things like “not that you care, but your kids made it safely to school.”

 How do I stop this? It’s ruining pretty much every morning.

 Signed, Not A Bus Follower

Dear Not A Bus,

I could tell you that after the first month of school these moms will simmer down and tire of their bus stalking BUT I would be lying to you. These mothers suffer from hyper vigilant maternal anxiety that is a subset of the neurosis known, as “I don’t have enough going on in my life so I’m going to concoct various worst case scenarios.” This pattern of parenting will eventually result in their children having crippling trust and independence issues well into adulthood. (But, you know that’s a whole other Dear Snarky letter.)

 The only way to get this type of mother to helicopter parent away is to give her more to worry about. So I suggest you mom shame right back with statements like, “Wow I can’t believe you’re just content to follow the bus. I know some other moms actually ride the bus so they know exactly what’s going on.” Or “Did you know that there is a crew of moms at the other elementary school that clean the buses because a black light showed that our buses are dirtier than a toilet seat at a Walmart on Black Friday.”

 Once you planted those suggestive seeds these moms will hopefully be too busy to send you any more passive aggressive texts because they’ll be either riding or vigorously scrubbing a school bus.

*If you have a question for – Dear Snarky – 21st Century Advice With an Attitude – write me at snarkyinthesuburb@gmail.com or send me a private message on my Snarky FB page.😉

Back-to-School Blues

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1765666c072076304c7597a927cec496Back-to-school excitement really starts waning when you have teenagers.

Don’t get me wrong I’m all hip hip hooray that school is in full swing, but what blows is that all the fun rituals you had when they were little are vanquished like the memories of a school day with recess.

The first one to go is the low-stress crayons, colored pencils and scented glue stick school supply shopping list. No more skipping through the aisles at Target looking for a Thomas the Tank Engine pencil-case and buying your teacher a carton of Kleenex along with a half-gallon of hand sanitizer.

Now, the supply list has the Texas Instruments TI84 graphing calculator on it with a price tag of $90.00. Why in the name of my wallet can’t kids just use their cell phones? There’s a free graphing calculator app that they can download. Again, just in case you missed it, I said free.

Let’s do a math word problem here without the aid of any calculator.

Sherry has already spent $50 on school supplies and paid her child’s high school $235 in “learning resource, activity programming, and technology fees.” Would she rather spend $0 for a calculator or $90? If you answered zero, congratulations! You’re a brainiac.

Then there’s the first day of school picture ritual that starts circling the drain as soon as your kid gets too cool to stand still for a photo or in my case your children claim “image privacy rights.” I really messed up this whole social media thing with my kids. I was a late adopter to digital-over-sharing and because I believed I was being a thoughtful parent I started out asking my kids permission before I ever posted a picture of them on social media.

Well, that blew up in my face.

My son, claiming he wants a clean digital footprint, because he’s sure he’ll have a job that requires the “highest security clearance someday,” allows me to post close to zero photos of him. And my daughter asserts that I take “the worst pictures ever” and declines to have me ever share her image. (In her defense I do take horrible photos.)

This means that last week, after seeing hundreds of adorable back-to-school photos on my newsfeed, I had no choice but to resort to posting a hand drawn picture of my daughter. I thought it would be a wake-up call to her. A “look what I have to do because you are such a photo control freak.”

Sadly, my plan of shaming backfired. My daughter took one look at my stick figure artist rendering and chirped, “It’s a huge improvement over the ones you take with your iPhone.”

Sigh.

What I really miss most about the first day of school is no longer reveling in the joy (and sometimes gaming windfall) that is the “Muffins and Mom” coffee (later changed to Parents and Pastries as a “reflection of our current parenting demographic” or at least that’s what the PTA flyer said.) This is where moms gather in the cafeteria after handing their kids off to their new teacher and catch up with each other about what they did over the summer.

The best thing about my back in the day Muffins and Mom experience was the over-under on what mom would be fake crying the most about school starting. Much like some people do fantasy football teams, about 20 moms would meet a couple of days before school started and get their bets on who would be the biggest boo hooer, who would have the newest boobs, and who would announce they were “taking a break” on the marital front.

After a couple of years we had to change the boo hooer bet to “second biggest boo hooer” since it was too easy to pick who would be the boo hoo queen. The same mom always won and it even seemed scripted. She would enter the cafeteria late, always clutching a handful of Kleenex, and then she would work the room going from mom to mom apologizing for sobbing and then blubber about how she’s going to “miss her baaaabies.”

Fast forward to when I had a child in third grade and the betting pool hit a trifecta. That big boo hooer had the newest breast augmentation and was on a marriage “time out.” Jackpot!

Maybe that’s what I need to do to get over my melancholy of missing those elementary school years — start some kind of new betting pool or game. I’ve got it. Bingo! I can play it this evening at the high school back-to-school night. The center square can be a parent who asks a teacher a question that is really a not so humble brag about their stellar child.

I think I’m feeling better already.🙂

 

 

 

C.S.I. – The Suburbs

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I see dead people. O38-learning-from-watching-from-CSI-graphK, not actually dead people, but I do see serial killers, which makes me “this” close to seeing dead people.

You now may be beyond curious as to how I’m seeing serial killers and perhaps thinking to yourself, “Is she visiting maximum security prisons?” The answer to that is a firm no.

But if you’re a stranger that knocks on my door, chances are I’m getting a serial killer vibe.

In fact, last week I’m almost certain a serial killer was stalking my neighborhood and I was all over it like a SWAT team on a “I just ate two sleeves of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies in under three minutes” sugar high. (If you’re doubting if the whole two sleeves of cookies in under 180 seconds can be done. Don’t. I know on good authority it’s very, very doable.)

It all started on a brutally sunny morning where the humidity was so thick that the mere act of stepping outside made you feel like a deep-fried mozzarella stick dunked in expired chunky marinara sauce.

This is why, when my doorbell rang, I knew something was off.

The heat mandated that no one would voluntarily be outdoors and more importantly, the doorbell ring was suspect. It wasn’t the rapid ding-dong of the Fedex or UPS guys who are always in such a hurry.

No, this ring was impatient, yet leisurely, like the person on the other side of the door wants to make sure you hear the ding dongs and that they’re not leaving no matter how long it takes you to get to the door. It was an overture of evil.

So, of course, I sprinted into action and approached my front door armed with a Swiffer Wet Jet and a beagle. I felt invincible.

I had a cleaning tool that not only could whack someone in the head, but spray cleaning solution in their eyes at the same time. Add in a barking beagle who enjoys the sound of his voice, more than any Chamber of Commerce president I’ve ever met, and I was well armed and ready to rumble. My strategy was to have my dog’s barking act as a distraction while I clubbed the doorbell ringer on the head.

I slowly opened my door and was greeted by a young man who with a cursory glance of someone lacking in serial killer profiling seemed harmless. He was handsome, semi-muscular, well-dressed in pressed shorts and a polo shirt, was exceedingly clean and he wasn’t sweating, at all.

Two words for you — red flag. For those of you who haven’t spent the best years of your life watching crime procedurals, let me break it down for you why the guy at my door was a killer.

First, Mr. Doorbell was almost hairless.

He did have hair on his head and eyebrows, but the rest of his body looked like it had been bathed in Nair. This can only mean one thing. He’s shaved his extremities to cut down on leaving behind any DNA evidence.

Second, he was too clean, like you just knew there was some OCD grooming issues which is No. 4 on the serial killer checklist.

Third, his fingernails were super short, which speaks to not wanting to have a nail pierce the surgical glove you’re wearing as your dismember a middle-aged woman in XL Target capri pants.

Not being a fool, I didn’t let the man in my home, but being curious and adamant about public safety I walked him off my front porch and into the yard. Still holding my Swiffer I began to interrogate him. Mr. Doorbell was selling (wait for it) “concierge level home extermination.”

“Oh, I bet you’re mighty good at that,” I said clutching my Swiffer a little tighter. He enthusiastically shared that for the low price of $99 he could spray my home for bugs right this very minute starting in the (again wait for it) basement. To make things Ted Bundy meets Steve Jobs, Mr. Doorbell had an iPad that showed a map of my street and he was fast-talking and pointing on his iPad about which neighbors he had “already done.”

When has said “already done” the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and then I thought good God, he’s planning to literally exterminate the whole neighborhood.

So, I sprung into action. I asked to see a photo ID, pesticide license and an environmental impact study. This confused him so much he bolted from my yard. Then when I followed him down the street, while still wielding the mighty Swiffer, he hauled out of the neighborhood. I’m not ashamed to admit I high-fived myself, my dog and the Swiffer. How could I not? I had saved my hood.