At Door’s Stand

I was standing in front of two doors. I had to make a decision.

My husband was behind me purposefully sipping coffee, no sugar, with the pose of an exasperated soccer coach. He made slurping sounds between mild mumbles. He finally announced, to me and to the other customers and idlers of the do-it-yourself store, that he was giving me another five minutes to decide.

“So,” he said, “which one is it going to be, Pat?”

You see, we had been robbed. Not of anything special really – a few old coins handed down from eccentric relatives. The house was more of a mess than anything else: overturned furniture, a broken lamp, old papers that we had forgotten about. All were dispersed everywhere. Oddly enough, all the electronics and appliances were still there.

But in the act of burglary, the back door leading into the garden had been destroyed beyond repair. An act of violence out of character given the mildness of the robbery. It was this gateway into our home that had to be replaced. This under-appreciated symbol of ourselves.

This is why I was standing in front of two doors in a harshly lit aisle of a do-it-yourself store, one aisle over from preposterous lawnmowers, at an ambitious hour on a Saturday morning.

One of the doors before me would greet me over the next decades as I stepped into the outside world. Not only me, but my husband, my loved ones, perhaps my future children.

My husband, in his state of caffeinated counsel, suggested the more utilitarian and robust oak door. Conservative, sturdy, durable and unimaginative, it was a door made to persist quietly through the ups and downs of life.

It stood before me to my right. Part of me wanted to reach out to its austere conventionality. I touched its surface. The touch was perhaps a bit too long and purposeful as an employee with a high-visibility vest was narrowing his eyes at me from the plumbing section.

Really, it is what stood to my left that was causing me to pause in my decision. It was a French door, made of some undisclosed wood, with symmetrical windows. Each window was an invitation to an unseen vignette. I felt that each, in a way, would be a stage to life’s several parts. It was a door of possibilities.

“Fingerprints will show on the glass you know,” said my husband. “You’ll be spending your days with a rag and a bottle of window cleaner eyeing that door and willing the hand smudges away.”

“That’s alright. I’ll manage.” I took a deep inhale. “I’ve made a decision. It will be the French door. Let’s buy it.”

I opened the door and entered the display for good measure.

I received a nod of acceptance, so I summoned an employee over – the one who had narrowed his eyes at me from the plumbing section. 

“My husband and I,” I declared with majesty, “would like to purchase this French door. May you assist us to the cash register?”

“That door is not for sale,” came the impassive reply.

“What? But it's on the floor with the other doors.”

“There is a lawsuit with the manufacturer over the window panes. They tend to fracture. We keep the door on display, but do not sell it pending the outcome of the lawsuit.” He delivered the last sentence while unconsciously cleaning his left ear with his index finger.

I was disappointed, but perhaps it was a sign.

“Alright then, we shall take this oak door.”

“That one’s not for sale either.”

“What? Why?”

“Turns out the oak finish may have lead in it. Mercury too. A bunch of nerds from compliance are making some tests.”

“Do you have any doors for sale?” my husband intervened.

“There’s this one.” The employee was pointing, in the manner of a fatigued flight attendant, to a plastic door with a Dolly Parton decal over its handle. “It’s one of our more popular models. We call it the Jolene.”

It looked very flammable. 

“You wouldn’t happen to have any other doors for sale, would you?” I could not help but deliver the line a couple of degrees cooler than a Siberian breeze.

“Do don’t like Dolly Parton?”

“That,” I carefully enunciated the rest as I was reading the name tag on the employee’s high-visibility vest, “Steve, is beside the point.”

Steve proceeded to starch his head and inadvertently clean his other ear. In the moment, it was hard to determine if he was a simpleton or an overeducated soul who had yet to find his niche. You could tell his brain was throbbing at full capacity. His mental gears were going. Finally, something must have lined up in his thought process.

He delivered his line with clear emphasis.

“We might have something. Follow me.”

I was mildly excited. Perhaps, after all, I would find my special door.

Our little group, Steve, my husband, and I navigated a few aisles with purpose until Steve stood with the smile of a gameshow host about to unveil the lightening round prize.

“Here it is!”

It was a garage door. There were horses drawn on it. It had two windows shaped like hearts.

I grabbed my husband by the arm and we made a brisk silent exit.

“Next time I am standing in front of two doors trying to make a decision, tell me to go back to bed.”

“Don’t we still need a door, Pat?”

I thought for a moment.

“We’ll try to repair the old one using parts from the overturned furniture.”

In the end, this unexpected decision was the best solution there was.

I now have a door with a story, and the neighbours love it. They praise me for my common sense. The ecologically-minded ones claim it is a wonder of upcycling. The artistic ones love its eclectic cohesiveness.

Sometimes it is not so much the obvious decisions that we remember, the times we are faced with two doors before us, but the unconventional decisions along the way.