My work often brings me into the homes of complete strangers. Friends, usually women, have asked if this ever bothered me, creeped me out. I'm not much at being a guest and I sure do prefer the comfort of my own home to others but, you gotta do what you gotta do to make a buck. So, no, I've never been scared in other people's homes. I have been a little creeped out after the fact.

Joe D. was an old bachelor. He was probably in his mid-fifties at the time. There was no wife or ex-wife to speak of and no photo's of the children in his Berwyn home. I recall that I had to delay work on his kitchen for a few days because I had taken sick. When I called him to advise him of the rhyme and reason to the delay, he assured me that my being sick was not a problem for him and I could come over and work. Um, no. That was why I was calling. I couldn't perform the work.

I got better in a couple of days and called and arranged a new start date. When I arrived at his house, he was on a three-way call with his mother and one of her friends.

"Ferrerman finally showed up, ma and Mrs Garflinerhuffle! He's actually here! You said he wouldn't show but he's actually here!"

A yellow flag arose in my mind. I was just a painter. Why was I the center of this guys universe? Why were his mother and Mrs Garflinerhuffle so concerned about my arrival? Weird and creepy but, I know how hard it is to get contractors to show up and people do get anxious.

Joe D. wasn't all that bad. Just a little out there I guessed. There wasn't a lot to the job and I finished in a timely fashion. We did the walk through and he was pleased with the work. He cut me a check.

"Why don't you come on down to the basement", he asked, "and have a beer with me? The fridge is broken and the beer is warm but, come on down stairs and let's have a beer."

Well I had heard about that broken fridge and the warm beer the entire time I worked in his house. It seemed to me that a smart guy would have iced that beer down in anticipation of a celebratory beer. Warm beer does not appeal to me but, neverminding that, I had a wife and kids to get home to so I begged off despite his overly persistent pleas. That persistence raised another yellow flag to me. The thought occurred to me that I could go down into that basement and never come back up- alive. He was old and I could take him but, not if I drank a drugged, warm beer. John Wayne Gacy had hinted that he had not acted alone and he took the names of his accomplices to his grave when he finally finished those awful clown paintings when the State got around to executing him. I'm being flippant of course but, better to err on the side of caution. I cashed the check and went home.

Nine o'clock that night, Joe D. called to advise me that I had left a tool at his house and he wanted me to come over and get it. He wanted me to come over "now". All my stuff was accounted for. I asked him to describe it. It's been years but, what ever tool it was, was not mine. I heard a male voice in the background. Joe then told me that his carpenter had discovered something wrong with my work and Joe needed me to come over "now" to remedy it. I asked him to describe the work. It had nothing to do with the scope of my work, work that he had signed off on earler that day. He protested that his carpenter said I needed to fix the problem and, again, it needed to be done "now".

"You tell your genius carpenter to fix it himself. I'm done with you." I hung up the phone. I think he called back several times, I may have answered once more but, it was late and I turned the phone off. I would never work for this clown again.

A few years later, I did some work for a very beautiful woman, in Bartlet Tn. I think it was her kids bedroom. There wasn't a lot to it. I painted the room and hung a border. She wasn't at all creepy like Joe D. had been. A deeply tanned brunette she was quite, smoking hot. I liked her a lot.

You never know about women. Sometimes you read signals wrong. Why did she change her daisy dukes five times that afternoon? Why did she throw herself down on the bed, her crotch in my face as I knelt down to do something by the bed? Why was she looking at me like that? Why had she brushed her ample breasts up against me as I reached up on a shelf to retrieve something she had asked for? She had seemed to be topless, brushing her hair in the bathroom with the door wide open earlier. Why? And, to this day, I will always wonder why I didn't backtrack to check what I thought I had seen...

Well, I know why. I was married and loyal to my wife. I wasn't a cheater. Surely I was mis-reading all these "signals" that weren't really there because, let's face it, I'm a guy and that's what we do. Her kids were in the house that whole day, playing. It was just my imagination running away from me that anything sexual would happen that day. She was an extremely desirable woman who just happened to be very sexy. I had met her husband that morning. She knew I was married. The kids were in the house for Gods sake. I'm such a tool. She couldn't have been topless with the door wide open...

I finshed the job to her satisfaction, collected the check and went home to the wife and kids.

Nine o'clock that night, the phone rang. It was her husband. He was supposed to have gone to the casinos that night with his brother. He was calling to tell me that I had left a tool at his home and that I should come over to get it right now. I asked him to describe the tool. It wasn't mine.

Suddenly, there was a problem with the border I had hung in the kids room. It needed to be addressed "now". I countered that it was late for both me and the kids and that I could look at it the next day. The kids, he said, wouldn't be a problem as they were at a sleep over. Well, I said it's late. He persisted. It was STILL late. He persisted... Call me tomorrow I said and I hung up.

They say that nothing good happens after midnight. I guess in my timezone, you could say nine o'clock. I don't think this couple were serial killers of painters like Joe D. may or may not have been but I couldn't see any good coming from a late night visit to their home. My first thought had been that the husband might have thought something had happened between his wife and I. Maybe he wanted to kick my ass. My second thought wasn't much better. Couples sometimes like to share... Some guys like to watch... It wasn't my idea of a good time anyway you sliced it.

Common sense tells you not to venture into bad neighborhoods during the day and most definitely not at night. That's a no-brainer. Work takes you into a lot of unfamilar territory and you do what you gotta do. I just prefer to do it during business hours. It's good to be safe at home.