Last week, a guy who’s running for state representative knocked on my door and asked for my vote.

Like many people, I consider an unexpected visitor to be cause for alarm. Who are these people? What do they want? Will they care if I don’t put clothes on before answering the door? And it’s rude. There I am, sitting on my futon watching HDTV, happily separated from the rest of the burning world, when all of a sudden, someone I don’t know decides they’re worthy of entering my existence.

I forget the politician’s name, but he told me he wants better schools and less traffic — distinguishing him from every other politician in America. I promised him that I’d look at his Web site, but I never did. It’s just hard for me to follow through on anything I’m asked to do by someone who shows up on my doorstep unannounced.

Ultimately, I think this might be my problem, not theirs; so I put together a list of the common front-door intruders. At least this will tell us what to expect.

PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ON SUBURBAN DOORS

• Neighbor kids who accidentally kick their balls into our yard. This is perhaps the least disturbing. Still, there’s nothing worse than having to stand up to answer the door because little Jimmy misjudged his motor skills again.

• Neighbor kids who shamelessly plead with you to buy a candy bar or magazine subscription, so their band can go to Washington D.C. The younger ones are always accompanied by an enforcer — typically a mom standing at the end of the driveway. She’ll smile and wave hello.

But make no mistake; she’s there to ensure that you don’t damage her child’s self-esteem by denying the purchase. Should you fail to cough up $20 in exchange for 50 cents’ worth of chocolate, you’d better pray that kid’s dad isn’t the local soccer coach. Failing to support his child may mean less playing time for yours. That’s just how it is in the jungle of parenting power-politics.

• Salespeople. Within a typical month, various people will swing by to try and trim my trees, mow my lawn, install new windows and paint my house. They’ve all got the same basic pitch: “I drove by and couldn’t help but notice that your house looks like crap.”

• The unfortunates. These people are customarily dressed in Izod T-shirts loaned to them by the juvenile detention centers from which they’ve recently been paroled. The last one I encountered knocked on the door and said, “I’m looking for sponsorship to attend trade school.” This is actually quite a sharp pitch. He was basically saying, “Help me get an education, or I’ll be forced to continue knocking on doors.” Still, I don’t care how big his laminated nametag-badge is, it’s still not reassuring enough to open the door.

This small list should be a good start toward alleviating the annoyance of an unexpected door knocker. And by the way, I’m going to vote for that politician — he was once an All-American running back.

Jeremy Greenberg is a writer, comedian and an Eastside resident. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Relative Discomfort: The Family Survival Guide (Andrews McMeel). Learn more at www.jeremygreenberg.com.

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