Self-Absorbed Prattle, aka, My Life as a Financial Advisor.

She walked up to the blue house, business card in hand. She rang the bell, and turned slightly away from the door as she had been taught to do. She saw a young and jaunty couple, pushing strollers, walking up the street. As they drew level with the blue house, they turned around, walked down the other side of the street away from her.

A few minutes later, working her way down the other side of the shady avenue (why was there nobody home this afternoon? she thought idly), she passed the blue house again. There, in the driveway, playing with a couple of tow-headed toddlers, was the jaunty couple. She felt deflated, and all of her faux-cheerfulness evaporated. They had seen her standing on the front porch of their house and had walked away rather than talk to her. Now, they pretended they didn't see her. She wondered if pretending not to see her was to save her from embarrassment or to save themselves from it. I'm not an evangelist, she wanted to yell, I'm just a goddamn financial advisor. You don't have to run away from me.

She drove home slowly, circling around the streets surrounding her house. She didn't want to get home too soon. Finally, she pulled up behind the local high school and began to cry - a little, at first, and then more when she remembered that school was out for the summer and there was little chance of being discovered by unsympathetic 16-year-olds.

She sat in the car, dabbed at her eyes with a leftover coffee-shop napkin, and waited until the red in her eyes was gone before she drove home.