I am amused by door-to-door sales people. Sometimes I ignore them. Sometimes I tolerate them. Sometimes I have fun with them. It all depends on my mood.
This afternoon I was attempting to to clean out a sadly neglected flower bed at the front of my home. From up the street I noticed the give-away figure of a young salesman dressed all in black and carrying a clip board. I just knew he was going to stop and talk to me.
"Doing some gardening today?" asked the lad of East Indian extraction, trying to be conversationally observant as he approached me. "Nice weather," he quickly added without giving me a chance to come up with a hoped-for sarcastic answer to his first question.
"It's not a bad day," I replied, before posing the natural next question: "What are you going to try to sell me today?"
"Nothing," he smiled. "Are you going to buy something?"
ME: "Not likely...But what aren't you going to try to sell me?"
HIM: "I'm with Eastlink Communications. Have you heard about us?"
ME: "Yes I have. As a matter of fact, I'm a subscriber."
HIM: "Is that right? What services do you get from us?"
ME: "We get telephone and TV cable from Eastlink."
HIM: "Is that all?"
ME: "What more do you want?"
HIM: "If you have a computer we can bundle Internet for you too and save you some money?
ME: "I know all that but I prefer to stay with Bell Sympatico for my computer. I just do not want to disrupt a system that is already working well for me."
HIM: "Okay then. Do you have any complaints or problems that I can pass on to our people at Eastlink?"
ME: "Glad you asked...We have lots of complaints and problems. Got a few more minutes?" I was joking of course. But I don't think he knew that.
"Alright. Have a good day!" he said evasively as he turned and hustled up the street without looking back. I think he had selective hearing.
(Tomorrow: A conversation with a 10-year-old boy in a hospital waiting room.)
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