Door to Door Deviltry

Door to door salesmen are a peculiar phenomenon these days. They used to be far more common—vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, Bibles, Tinker Toys. You’d see them coming and, unless you were really bored, slam the door shut and pretend you weren’t home when the ominous doorbell chimed (especially if they were selling butcher knives and the truck panel said Manson Sales and Cutlery). They were common in the ‘60s when I was growing up but now seem to have been replaced by Jehovah’s Witness and Mormons, who are selling a completely different product—although slamming the door and hiding is still the way to go unless you can get that trap door installed on your porch.

I guess I might not find these door to door hucksters quite as annoying if they were more truthful. I got one a few weeks ago, for the first time since I was a kid, who first offered me a smelly candle. Um, smelly candle? Yeah, because I definitely needed one of those and that made the offer to suck up three hours of my time so much more appealing. Maybe if they had offered Jessica Alba…

But, anyway, in a rare moment of kind-heartedness, I felt bad, so I actually opened the door, smiled and said, “I don’t need no stinking candle!” Er, well, actually I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time.”

Salesman said, “It’ll only take a few minutes, boo.”

I said, “I not gonna buy a vacuum cleaner, so it’s not worth your time.” (Or mine, I thought.)

Salesman gave me that, “Oh-I’ve-heard-that-before-and-I-always-get-the-sale-at-the-end look” and said, “I get paid just to show you.”

Apparently here my brain stopped working for a few moments, because I said, “Ok, if it’s only a few minutes.”

After which, he went back to his van, pulled out a couple boxes, hauled them in the house and robbed my of three hours of my life.

Oy. Guess I won’t fall for that again. Unless, the salesperson is in a bikini, then all bets are off.

Well, I did get a roughly six by four section of my carpet cleaned and hypoallergenicized. It looked way better than the rest of the carpet, too, but sort of like a UFO had landed and made a carpet crop circle in my living room.

The salesman learned something, too: When I say I am not going to buy something right up front, I don’t (especially when it costs over a 1000 buckeroos!) I am particularly stubborn that way, so all you potential door to doors out there be forewarned. Same bikini-clad rules apply, however.

By reading between his words, I also learned how they target potential customers. I put it together real fast with a recent purchase, store credit card and a supposed “We don’t give your name out to anyone promise.” I would like to thank a certain home products warehouse for that. And it’s not Lowe’s. A pox on your depot.

To be fair, the salesguy was super nice and excellent at his job, I will say that. And I did give him my business card and promote my books to him. They are a whole lot cheaper than a vacuum cleaner, too. Hmm, maybe I should start going door to door…

Anybody selling stinky candles at a discount rate?

The Chloe Files #s 1 &2 in paperback from Barnes & Noble & Amazon:
Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…