What Would You Have Done?

Picture if you can, this Menopausal New Mom sitting at her computer enjoying her morning coffee while reading your blogs. Her 3 1/2 year old daughter is eating cereal and Dora is playing in the background. It's around 10:00 in the morning and the only grooming I have done so far is brush my teeth (I know, I'm lazy).  Yes, I'm sitting here in big old ugly unmatched PJ's, hair uncombed, face unwashed, eyes crusty, with my husband's heavy, gray flannel shirt over those ugly PJ's (did I mention there is actually a small hole in the arse of the bottoms?).

I am minding my own business when there is a knock at the door. After swearing under my breath that some outsider would dare interrupt my precious blog reading time, I get up and go the the door. There standing on my back doorstep along with his camera man (no, it's not Oprah) is a reporter from our local news station. Yes, I'm serious! They had been out driving around looking for some slob who has a pile of chopped up wood in their driveway and because my husband is too lazy busy to actually pile ours up, they picked us.

After regaining my balance (did I mention I nearly fell over?), as stupid as it sounds, I asked the reporter for ID because he doesn't look familiar to me. While he is digging it out, I look around the corner of my home and there in the driveway sporting huge letters advertising their television channel is the van. ID presented.

They ask for my permission to film the messy pile of wood in the driveway so I say "Okay", then they ask if they can film our wood stove where the wood is burned.  I say "No problem but let me clean it up first." (we had used it the night before so there were wood crumbs on the tile and the glass was a bit smoked up). They wait, I clean, then they ask, "How about you light it for us so we can get a shot of that for our story?" Okay, I'll light it.  "How about a picture of you lighting it?" That's where I started to draw the line.

"Wait a minute, how much of me are you going to shoot?" After going back and forth with them, I make them promise to film only my dried out, chapped hands. They agree. So they get that shot. While we are doing all of this, we are chatting and it turns out there have been complaints in our one-horse town about people burning garbage and plastic in their fireplaces. This story was being done in the hopes of educating those birdbrains on safe burning practices.

To this I can take a bow because we are the poster-couple for safe burning, we use only dry, seasoned wood, we light with birch bark, we have purchased the most efficient wood stove on the market to create the least amount of smoke blah, blah, blah.  While we are chatting, the reporter is telling me that these are exactly the points they want to make in their story so would I agree to an on-camera interview.

Okay, wait a minute. Not only have I not combed my hair this morning, I haven't been to the hairdresser to have it colored or cut since last January. I know, I have already made an appointment for tomorrow but this is today! I'm serious, they tried every trick and every lie in the book in the hopes I would throw my vanity out the window and agree to be interviewed.

So you know what I did? I waited for my husband to come home for lunch which he thankfully did around 11:00 and got him to do the interview. After all, he's the one who was actually showered and dressed and he's the reason they stopped at our house in the first place, ie that messy pile of wood.

So be honest, what would you have done? Would you have blown off you own vanity for the opportunity to be on TV even if you looked like shit on a stick crap???