Death of a Salesman

I got home the other night at 5:58--Ryan's soccer practice was at 6:00, and I was supposed to take him.

Right when I walked in the house, there was a knock at the door. I answered it, and there was a 20-year old kid standing there, obviously selling something.

I subscribe to the Pavlovian rule of advertising--I don't provide positive reinforcement to a behavior which is disrupting to me--ie. I NEVER buy something when someone comes to my door, or from telemarketers who call my house for that matter. Maybe that makes me an unreasonable asshole, or maybe that's just a coincidental fact, or perhaps even a causation of my behavior.

So, I was mildly irritated to begin with...I had seen these guys standing on the streetcorner when I drove by, and was dreading that they were Jehova's Witnesses or Mormons or something trying to get me to shave my head and dance in the airport with a bouquet of daisies (try to shake that mental image). I think they saw me because they had to have drawn a bead on my house as I pulled into the driveway.

To amplify my irritation, Fran came up to the door and told me that she had already told the young man "no". So I felt no guilt in immediately dismissing him with a comment of "Thank you, but I'm not interested."

He stuck his chin out and replied "You aren't interested in saving money?"

Here's the funny thing--I could see from the paper that he had in his hand that he was trying to get people to sign up for Fiber Optic Internet, and I DO want that, but it was just a bad time, what with me already being late taking Ryan to practice. I didn't feel compelled to explain that to him, or support their door-to-door disruption.

Past experiences flashed back:

Fran let a huge, admitted ex-con, ex-crack addict into our house to show her cleaning solution and how great it works on the carpet. To prove how non-toxic it is, he drank some of it from the bottle. And, two years later, it's still what we use to clean up spills. I asked her if I could have used it to clean up the chalk outline of her dead body...

An exterminator came to the door and, right on cue when I answered the door, pointed to an antpile in front of our house and dramatically jumping up and down and pointing exclaimed "Wow, man! Did you know you have ants!" I replied "I'm a Buddhist, and they're my pets." and slammed the door.

Another time when I was out of town, a supposed "deaf-mute" guy came to the door and, through a process of charades, cleaned a strip of brass on our door with a cleaning solution. Fran didn't buy it. No matter what I tried, I couldn't clean the rest of the door to match the damn streak that he left, and it was that way for over a year. Finally, I had to replace the part of the door that he had cleaned!

Jackass!

So, all of these experiences, and this post-pubescent's surly sarcasm just pissed me off. "You aren't interested in saving money?"

When a salesman asks you that, it tends to be a loaded question. And, put that way, I was insulted--he definitely caught me on a bad day.

I don't remember the dialog, but it was pretty much centered around how he needed to just leave right now, and that I didn't appreciate his coming to my door and throwing down the sarcastic attitude. Because Ryan was there, I stepped out on the front porch and closed the door behind me.

What I was thinking was, "While I'm out here, and I'm already late, I may as well get the mail out of the mailbox."

What the kid thought was "Oh, shit. I think this guy's going to kick my ass!" I saw his eyes get very wide and he immediately stopped speaking as I stepped toward him, actually already dismissing him in my mind and focused on getting the mail so I could get my little guy to soccer practice...late. I was about 4 inches taller than him which was accentuated by him being on the second step of the porch, so when I realized that I had scared him I kind of chuckled and then felt bad.

Did that stop him from running his mouth? Incredibly, no. He kept babbling as I walked past him out to the mailbox and was still defiant as I walked past him and into the house.

Apparently, Ryan had the same idea as the salesman because I heard him tell Fran when the door opened "I hope Dad didn't get a black eye!"

No respect.