TODAY

Is the annual house tour. From 12-5 I will be out snooping through 9 or 10 Framingham homes that have been deemed "interesting" by the Historical Society. This is one of the Historical Society's more stellar fundraising ideas because it appeals to, and validates, the inner snoop. And you wouldn't believe how many inner snoops just need a little coaxing by way of expensive pink tickets and a photocopied tour map. Framingham sweats nosy people who maintain a polite, non-outwardly-inquisitive demeanor every other day of the year. House Tour aficionados are cousins to those people who stretch Saran wrap across the toilet on April Fools Day.

Bright and early we meet outside the Historical Society building for a brief pep talk about respecting other people's property and not stealing the crystal which is punctuated by peals of shrill laughter because who are they to insinuate that we respectable ladies would dream of stealing a penny from the roadside nevermind Waterford from someone's home. Then a bald man who has bathed in copious amounts of cologne holds up his pistol, fires, and we're off. Hundreds of nosy women in broad hats and bright springtime dresses, kitten heels and straw purses, spread out across Framingham Centre like overturned watercolors, racing to skulk, slide, slink, slip, snake and sneak in and out of other people's closets and cabinets all the while maintaining a running commentary with our accomplices and acting under the attractive guise of permission. We paid for a ticket, we expect to be impressed but the most we steal is ideas.