Behavior changes & the curtain twitcher

April 9, 2020 – Behavior changes  & the curtain twitcher

         I subscribe to The Washington Examiner and Hugh Gurdon is the editor-in-chief.  I adore his editorials and column – I am on his wave length – I get what he writes.

         In the April 7th to April 14, 2020 edition he is writing about how we have changed our behavior because of this coronavirus.  He says:

         “ . . . we are . . .  veering away from oncoming pedestrians, . . . ”

         “ . . . enduring the same frustrations, in the same boat.”

         “ . . . shoppers stop and wait at the end of an aisle until the only other customer in it has emerged and left it vacant.”

         “Strangers make way for each other with a renewed politeness that germinated in an understanding that society will function a lot better if we treat each other considerately.”

         And, then he described me succinctly:

         “The common culture has curtain-twitching aspects, . . .”

         I am a curtain-twitcher.

         YUP, he has my number, he knows I twitch the white lace curtain aside to see what other people in my neighborhood are doing as I watch the news or drink my morning coffee in my easy chair.  Sometimes I try to hide it, in the evening, when the lights are on – I know I am a fish in the fish bowl of my interior lighted house;  In order to be more discrete, I get up and turn off all the lights, then, I twitch the curtains aside.

         He is right: “There is more to watch outside our windows when the neighbors are at home, more people whose ordinary behavior is suddenly of greater interest than it used to be.”  Gosh, he was describing me!

         There is the blatant twitch – my walking up to the window and flipping the lace curtain back to get a good view not caring if someone sees me.  Then there is the sleuth twitch – where I sidle up to the window, my body pressed against the wall beside the window and peering askance at my target, not wanting to be seen.

         I am not the only one in the house paying attention to the goings on in this neighborhood.

         My husband in his “command post” chair - his TV easy chair - can see every vehicle come and go in our development.  We live on a corner, so he has a 20-car-length view of the front of the vehicle, then the corner, which is a forty-five degree angle at our drive as they pass. He can see the driver up close at the drive on the way into the development and the passenger up close on the way out of the development. 

         What can we call him?  Development Security Guard?  Too bad he is not being paid on a per vehicle basis, he’d be a millionaire.

         We have always done it – watched what was happening in the neighborhood – it is being a good neighbor or – or are we just old-fashioned nosey?  NAH.