People know you work at home and yet they come over unannounced. You want to be polite and friendly and so you open the door, you let them in, yet your mind is awash in words, in what you were just writing, so you stand there a little spaced out but trying to be sociable so they don’t feel totally uncomfortable. They talk on and on, you say little and begin to wonder why you opened the door at all, being all closed-mouth and rude as you are.

Writers tend to feel guilty over exhibiting this behavior. I do, and yet I don’t. I mean, I hate being rude. But I work at home! Do I just not answer the door at all? What if they saw me sitting in here typing away as they walked up to the door? Wouldn’t that be worse, and even ruder?

When I answered the door, my friend said, “What’re you doing?”

“Working.”

She sniffed. “You baking?”

“A pot of garbanzo beans is simmering.”

She started chatting and I just wanted to get back to my work. I should have said, “Travis will be home from school very, very soon and I really need to go right now.”

When she left–10 mintues later, at that–I thought, “You were so rude! You should have done it some other way!”

Maybe wearing a sandwich board as you walk up to the door that says, “I’m writing and rude today.”

I dunno.

What’s the right thing to do here, when someone already knows you work at home? Or do you just not even open the door?