It takes a lot of confidence to knock on someone’s door at dinnertime and ask if we’d like to sign up for an year-long contract to extirpate our ants.
I have an arrangement with the ants. They can live in their mound and do as they please. I care not for their wars with the colony across the street, or if they wish to excavate subterranean chambers where they bend hapless aphids to the lash. If they appear on the patio and build mounds from the sand beneath my paver bricks, I lace their entrances with poison, and if any of the teeming minions carry the chemicals home, that’s on them. I admire their industry, but have no problem destroying their labors with a brisk spray of the hose. One of the reasons we get along: they do not knock on the door at dinnertime.
The salesman wanted to know if we’d like to sign up for a pest-control package. My wife happened to be outside at the time, and since she is a nice person, she heard the fellow out. She showed him a big anthill that plagues our backyard. Why sure he could fix that! Not one application, though. It would take at least two. Good thing was, he was selling a quarterly pest-control subscription, just four easy payments, and no mice or ants or spiders, guar-an-teed.
She didn’t want to say no, so she said the salesman could talk to her husband. Great! I’ll be back at 5:30.
I would not have been as accommodating as my wife, because I have no patience for people who knock on my door to interrupt my time. I usually ignore the knock entirely, once I’ve glimpsed an unfamiliar forehead in the window. No, I don’t want any. No, I am not going to sign your petition. No, I do not want magazines or candy bars. No. The only person to whom I would possibly want to speak would be someone selling doormats that say NO SOLICITORS. This would also work to stave off roaming bands of itinerant unemployed British lawyers.
But. Sometimes they come to the door when you’re outside, and one oughtn’t be brusque. A polite demurral costs nothing. Thus I planned out the 5:30 meeting. I would first apologize for my wife’s good-hearted nature, and how he had to come back for naught, but listen carefully: I appreciate that you are trying to make a living at your trade, and I cannot imagine the psychic toll of being told no time and again, day after day, hoping for that one person whose eyes light up with interest. But you have chosen this life. You have chosen to bother people. You are not entitled to any of our time after I have spoken a simple phoneme, and here it is: NO. I am unmovable man. There is nothing you can say. The judgment is final and there is no appeal. No dollar in my pocket will find its way to yours. No -
Of course, he’s probably left halfway through and drove off, because this guy, man, what a tiresome bore.
There were, however, complications. If he was due at 5:30, that influenced the timing of dinner. Say the pizza takes 20 minutes to cook: I’d put it in the oven at 5:11, because our business would be concluded at 5:31. If I spoke slowly. I considered drawing out the Noooooooo to an exaggerated length, with a falling tone to suggest a sense of helplessness. But I don’t think I could do a 60 second no. Breaks the effect if you have to pause to inhale.
What if he’s late? Unlikely. But I could wait until our business is done, and then oven the pizza. Can you oven something? Is that a verb now? If you can plate something, surely you can oven it, not that I ever wish to use the term. How would you conjugate it? I oven. You oven, we oven, they oven. We have ovened.; they should oven. Pretty simple.
Hey, where is he? It’s 5:31. I know what you’re saying: boy, good thing you didn’t put - er, didn’t oven that pizza. True. A few more minutes passed. No one. It became apparent after a while that he was not coming back. He’d correctly interpreted “you can come back and talk to my husband” as a likely no, and bailed. I’d been huffing and puffing for naught.
Now I wanted to go knock on his door. You don’t want to come back and make the argument, land that sale? Fine. To heck with you, buddy. I’ll sign up without you even having a chance to pitch your product. You won’t have a chance to feel great because you used your skills and landed a customer. Here’s my money.
That’ll show ‘em.
We have a little placard on the bottom sill of our front door which reads "Children Welcome Otherwise no Soliciting". It has worked wonderfully. I never mind buying cookies or wreaths from the scouts. It measures 4 inches by 10 inches. Since it has gone up, not one knock or doorbell ring from anyone over 12!
Girl Scout cookie season concluded a while back, and I don't mind throwing them a few shekels for a couple of cookies in excessive packaging. I try to get my money's worth and see what kind of salesgirls they are. What is your troop number? Where do you meet? What will this money be going towards: camp, projects? I try to get the parents to let the young ladies answer on their own. So far it has been blank stares and I-dunnos. A couple have looked at their uniforms for the troop number.
I'll keep trying, as developing your sales talents can lead to success in life.