A conversation with a door-to-door vacuum salesman

Crossposted on www.the-F-word.org

We frequently get door-to-door salespeople shilling everything from home security systems to cable TV to Jesus. I was working in my home office last week when came a sharp rat-a-tat-tat at the door.  I covertly peeked out the Roman shade to see standing at the door a spry man in his 50s with a shiny bald head anchored by greying fringe.  There was an incident not too long ago a few streets over in which someone claiming to be fundraising door-to-door hit an elderly man upside the head with a crowbar and proceeded to rob him.  I am not the kind of person who regularly engages in fits of histrionic paranoia, but considering that I work from home and am a magnet for social aberrations, I generally don’t answer the door to people I don’t know when alone.  I was unfortunately spotted, however and reluctantly opened the door to a door-to-door vacuum salesmen for Kirby, who kindly complimented the biosphere that is my front yard and explained that he was just signing people up for a $1,000 drawing.  The eight months of sheer boredom and anguish I spent as a desperate 16-year-old trying to sell windows on commission to raise money for driver’s ed flitted across my mind and so I obliged him.  I seriously did not intend to mindfuck him with my feminist wiles, but, well, read on…

Salesman : Okay, what’s your last name?

Me : Richardson

Salesman : First name?

Me : Rachel

The neighbor’s very friendly cat who lives on our front porch interrupts by pawing on the man’s pants. I tell him that it’s not our cat, but rather our neighbors, and because they have two Great Danes with heads the size of basketballs, he claimed our porch long before my husband even bought the house.

Salesman : You’re married?  What’s your husband’s name?

Me : Brandon  [Pause] And his last name is Clooney (a pseudonym, of course)

Salesman : [Looks up confused ]  Clooney, did you say?

Me : Yep, Clooney — C  L  O  O  N  E  Y

Salesman : [smiling ] Oh, okay.  Your fiance or whatever.  Hey, I asked one guy if he was married and he told me that his husband’s name was…  There’s every kind of lifestyle these days.

Me : Nope, he’s my husband.  We’re legal.

Salesman : [smile wavering ] You’re MARRIED?  And his last name is Clooney?

Me : Clooney.  That’s right.

Salesman : But YOUR last name is Richardson?

Me : You got it.

The by now thoroughout nonplussed salesman goes on to try and weakly pitch Kirby’s line of ridiculously expensive vacuum cleaners and carpet cleaning services.  I inform him that we have wood floors throughout most of the house.  He inquires about the carpeted stairs he sees over my shoulder that leads to a carpeted second-floor.

Me : No thanks.  We’re going to replace it in the near future, so it’d be a waste of money cleaning it.

Salesman : Well, at least it’d be clean first before you replaced it.  And our services are really quite affordable.  I could schedule you a free demonstration…

Me :  Nah, that won’t be necessary.  We don’t even go upstairs and we have a lot of other projects that need done first.

Salesman : [Interrupting me ] Well, maybe I can come back when your husband gets home…

Me : [gritting teeth ] I don’t think that will be necessary.