The Problematic Peephole

Back in college, on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday afternoon, my intense studying was interrupted by a knock at the door. My first reaction was to ignore it, since anyone who knew me would call before stopping by. I knew it had to be some salesman who was too ignorant to understand the big, complicated words on the "No Solicitation" sign prominently hanging on the building entrance. The knocking persisted, so I eventually made my way to the door and peered through the peephole at my unwanted visitor, still determined that I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of delivering his sales pitch face-to-face.


When I looked through the peephole, the salesman had the nerve to angrily declare, "I can tell you're standing right on the other side of the door!" As I looked through my peephole, my head had apparently blocked out the light that shone through the peephole before I stood in front of it. But still, determined as ever, I stood quietly, ready to wait him out as long as it took. After a few more minutes of mumbling and swearing from his side of the door, and more motionless peephole leering from my side, the salesman gave up and moved along to the apartment across the hall. Victory was mine.

I was pleased with my success, and I even made an upgrade to my peephole after that unexpected encounter. For the remainder of my stay in that apartment, I kept a small scrap of paper scotch-taped over the peephole on the inside of the door. This prevented light from shining through, allowing me to get in prime peeking position without letting any potential visitors realize that I was looking right at them and standing only a few feet away. I felt like the Invisible Man...a genius Invisible Man, for that matter. Sadly, during the next eighteen months I lived in that apartment, not a single person ever came to the door. But I took great pride in my scrap of paper and scotch tape--perhaps an early sign of my burgeoning MacGyver skills.

But what does this odd story have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing...that is, until earlier this afternoon, nearly five years after my encounter with that salesman. This time, on a Saturday afternoon, I was wolfing down lunch and getting ready to head out the door to play tennis with a friend. As I ate, I was listening to some music on the computer...a little loud, perhaps, but it wasn't too unreasonable. Plus it was the middle of the afternoon, so I wasn't waking anyone up in the middle of the night.

Then, out of nowhere, I heard a knock at the door. Unlike my old college apartment, the outside doors on this building actually lock, so anyone coming to visit would have to ring my phone and ask me to let them in. Five years living in this building have taught me that an unexpected knock at the door can only mean that someone walked in through an unlocked door and embarked on a door-to-door journey of annoyance. And that someone was almost certainly a salesman, an annoying political campaigner, or a Jehovah's Witness.

That last scenario scared me the most. Years ago, my uncle devised a foolproof method that will immediately turn away a telemarketer or even the most persistent door-to-door salesman--just tell them you're a Jehovah's Witness. The result is an immediate apology from the ignorant salesperson, who thinks he has somehow insulted your religious beliefs with his sales pitch. It's a flawless plan...except when your visitors are themselves Jehovah's Witnesses.


So, once again, I planned to ignore the knocking. I immediately shut off the music, but I knew that my visitor had already heard it--despite the weight of my front door, it's about as soundproof as a cheap curtain. I didn't have my ingenious paper and scotch tape contraption in place, so I wisely decided to forgo any peephole leering. I went into wait-it-out mode. Another knock. Could this be about the music? Was it too loud? A few minutes passed, and I decided my visitor had given up.

Wrong. Another knock, accompanied by, "can you turn your music down!?" By now, the music had been off for a few minutes. Why was this guy still at my door? I was getting annoyed...the music hadn't even been playing for five minutes, it was the middle of the day, and it just wasn't that loud to begin with. My curiosity got the best of me; I had to know who was out there.


I walked over to the peephole and peeped. I immediately recognized an old guy who I'd occasionally seen in the halls around the building over the years. Is this really how he was going to play it, like a mature adult, coming to my door to ask me to turn down my music? I wouldn't have it. This was worse than the salesman, and I was even more committed to my wait-it-out strategy. He already got what he wanted...my music was off, and I was fully prepared to spend all day standing there in silence.

But the problem was that I couldn't stand there all day. I needed to leave for my tennis match in the next five minutes if I was going to make it on time. Yet another knock--it was clear he wasn't going away. I could feel the pounding vibrate through my head as I continued to press my face against the door and look through the peephole. Worse yet, I heard him say to someone else in the hall who was apparently out of my line of sight, "he's looking at me through the peephole right now." Curses! I had fallen victim to the peephole shadow blunder once again. Why hadn't I installed my scrap paper and scotch tape contraption the day I moved in?!

A few thoughts raced through my mind...what if I jumped off my second-story balcony with my tennis racquets and drove off, leaving him standing at my front door? I relished the thought of returning to my apartment a few hours later, the old man still standing in front of my door, knuckles bloodied from the incessant knocking. I could picture the look on his face when I walked up and asked if I could help him, acting as if I'd been gone all day. Surely he would have to question his own sanity, wondering how he could have possibly spent his afternoon harassing an empty apartment.


Despite the potentially epic story-telling value of this plan, I scrapped my balcony escape idea. With my track record for injuries over the past few years, it wasn't worth risking my body--or my tennis racquets--to make a daring patio exit. I was going to have to confront the old man. But how could I do this gracefully? He knew I was standing right there and that I'd just spent the better part of the past ten minutes ignoring his knocking. Opening the door now would be painfully awkward and embarrassing, and I certainly wasn't going to grant him the adult, face-to-face confrontation that he seemed to have his heart set on.

Worse yet, opening the door would reveal my identity, and I had no doubt that the old man would recognize me from the hall. At least by cowering behind my door I could prevent him from associating me with this apartment, which would save me from countless future awkward hallway encounters. I started flipping through my mental Rolodex of lies and excuses...jackpot! I would tell him I just got out of the shower!

"Who is it?" I asked through the closed door, as if I'd just realized someone was was knocking.
"Johnny, your neighbor above you. Can you turn the music down?!"
At this point I desperately needed to leave for tennis, so I had to shut him up quickly. "Yes, sorry about that, I was in the shower." Just like that, Johnny walked off, and I was free.

As I drove to tennis, it hit me: I had just confronted my arch enemy through my own front door! You see, until today, I never knew who lived above me. But Johnny's third-floor patio is no more than ten feet from my second-floor bedroom window. And, as it turned out, this past summer I spent one of the most frustrating Saturday afternoons of my life trying to study for the GMAT while Johnny's young grandchildren sat with him on that very patio, screaming and yelling. How could I possibly find the product of the first, third, and fifth prime factors of 11,482 while Johnny's grandchildren were shrieking six feet from my desk?

Johnny's patio, as seen from my bedroom window.

On that dreadful afternoon, I calmly tolerated that racket for much, much longer than the four minutes that Johnny put up with my "loud" music earlier today. And when I finally lost my patience that day, I had the decency to not venture up to the third floor and knock on Johnny's door. I did the mature thing and found the most profanity-laced song on my computer, cranked the speakers full-blast, opened my patio door, and gave those grandchildren a top-notch profanity lesson from the school of hard rock. Not only did this feel great, but my plan also worked perfectly. Within minutes, the children were inside, restoring peace to my soul-crushing study session.

And Johnny had the nerve to come downstairs and knock on my door today?! If anything, I should be the one standing on his doorstep, blaming him and his annoying grandchildren for my only slightly-better-than-mediocre GMAT score. But before I got too swept up in road rage as I drove to tennis, a smile spread across my face when I realized that Johnny's journey to the second floor today had given me something special: my next blog post.

My thoughts quickly wandered to a new subject of blame: the peephole. I had now twice fallen victim to what I consider a major design flaw in the standard peephole. Call me old fashioned, but I'm a firm believer that the peephole should not reveal to a visitor whether or not the resident is currently home. The whole reason for the peephole is to let the homeowner decide if he wants to open the door...and that decision is a lot less complicated if the person on the other side doesn't know that he's standing right there. With my past peephole misfortunes, I feel like I might as well have a reverse peephole installed on my door.

I continued to dwell on this problem when I returned home. I even searched the internet for a solution, but my efforts were fruitless. I stumbled across an intriguing video-style "peephole" that would eliminate all of the peephole shadow issues that had plagued me over the past five years, but the gadget cost $80. And I'm convinced that there's no problem in the world large enough to warrant spending $80 on a solution.


Obviously, for a more cost-effective fix I could quickly install one of my famous scotch tape and scrap paper contraptions, but that would violate my self-imposed ban on interior decorations of any kind--I take great pride in hanging absolutely nothing on my walls or doors (quite possibly a topic for a future blog post). My internet search uncovered some clever ideas for decorating my peephole, but that wouldn't solve the shadow problem and would still violate my minimalist interior design strategy.


To date, after nearly a year and a half of blogging, I've generated $2.35 in ad revenue, and Google requires a $100 minimum to cash out. Clearly, this blog has been a tremendous letdown in terms of funding my early retirement. And so, if this is my final blog post of 2011, know that have I temporarily shifted my focus from blogging to inventing the next great peephole cover.

Perhaps the solution is as simple as a small metal plate that sits inside the door, avoiding unnecessary external decoration while covering the peephole until my eye is firmly in place, with my head casting a shadow over the peephole as I prepare to spy on my visitor. Then, with the flip of a switch, I raise the metal plate, and my guest is completely clueless as to whether I'm standing two feet away or half way around the world. Awkward situation averted...and, with some clever marketing, early retirement successfully funded. Time to call work and tell them I won't be in Monday.