The Weirdos Are Comin'! The Weirdos Are Comin'!

"Good evening Sir, my name is Steve. I come from a rough area. I used to be addicted to crack but now I am off it and trying to stay clean. That is why I am selling magazine subscriptions. "

So, Thursday night I was busily making dinner when a couple of neighborhood kids and Bo came flying through my front door, "Someone's coming, someone's coming! Get ready!"

I said thank you to my miniature Paul Reveres and went to the front door.

A young girl, about 17, was standing there, and for the purpose of this story, I will describe her appearance. She was tall, probably almost as tall as me (5'10") and had dark long straggly hair. She was sweating a lot. She had on a spaghetti strap tank top, too long jeans, and several tattoos on her exposed upper body.

She started talking almost immediately.

"First of all I want to know if you are old enough to vote and if you will vote for me." I heard her, but didn't follow. I mean, what sort of crazy political office was she running for and what kind of moron would look at me and not know I wasn't old enough to vote. I asked her what she was running for and she smiled and said, "Nothing, I just want to know if you would like to help me win, you don't really have to vote for me."

I had mushrooms sauteing. And we all know how delicate mushrooms can be. So I said, "I have dinner on the stove, come in." I still was interested in what kind of politics this girl was involved in.

Well, it was none. She was doing that damn door-to-door magazine sales things. Where they hold up a laminated rectangular card that has a hundred names of magazines on one side and some hokey looking point system on the other side. She's doing it "for her speech class".

They are ALL doing it for their speech class. In California, in St. Louis, in Texas, and now in Iowa.

She held up her laminated card and took a deep breath, but I cut her off at the pass and said, "If you are selling magazines, I'm not buying." She hadn't mentioned magazines yet, so she knew I was on to her. I saw her eyes sort of flash, anger, annoyance, something not friendly. But she quickly replaced it with a bright smile and said, "Okay then! How about perfume!" And handed me the card.

I said, "are you kidding me, you're selling perfume from a laminated card?"
She said, "No, I just wanted you to look."

So, let's sum up here. She has made two statements to me. Both of them lies. And this is her sales approach?

She tried to get me to listen to her spiel, but I just said, "I'm sorry, you don't need to waste your time here, I'm not buying."

Danyo was sitting in his bouncy seat on the table. I give him cooking lessons on Thursdays. Avee came running into the kitchen and as she did the girl said, "Man, you have a lot of little redhaired brats around here, don't you?" I know she meant for "brats" to be funny, and personally I think it's funny to refer to my own children as brats because obviously I don't really mean that. But uh, she's a complete stranger.
In my home. **

But I was in a good mood so I casually raised my wooden spoon and said, "Boy you're batting a thousand, aren't you?"

She didn't follow me. I didn't think she would.

She tried a couple of other times to start her sales pitch. I wasn't even going to let her get to the, "I'm tied for 2nd and I will get to take my little niece who has cancer of the filangies to Disneyland if you just buy this magazine from me."

When it was clear I wasn't biting, her whole demeanor changed. She had this sort of defeated but totally ticked off look. And THEN she says, "Well if you aren't going to help me by buying any magazines, could I at least get a cold drink before I die of thirst out there in the heat." (It was maybe 80 outside).

I happened to be just turning on the faucet to rinse my spoon and she quickly added, "Something I could take with me, like a pepsi, or a coke?" I was incredulous. I said piously, "We don't have pepsi or coke in this house. I have water."

"Something cold, from the fridge?"

"Nope, nothing cold in the fridge, I have water." I hoped Avee wasn't within earshot and would come running in to be helpful, as she sometimes can be, and show her our drawer full of cold drinks. Then I noticed a 12 pack of diet sierra mist underneath our trash can. For some reason, the trash can felt really low to me when we moved here, so I propped it up on a box of soda. So I offered her a warm soda from under my trash can. I am every bit as classy as you think I am.

She shrugged and said, "I guess that will do." As IF! The last 30 seconds she was in my house were utterly shocking to me. weird

Have any of you gotten these people at your door? I have always suspected it was a scam and that these people take your checks and get your info, or take your cash and have a hay day, but that's just a speculations. When I googled to get some more info, it almost looked like it was a double scam originating with bigger companies who use the young people just as much as those young people try to use us. Who knows.

I'll mail you some muffins if you know the quote at the top. One of my all time favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies. The edited version, of course.

** In case you are surprised I didn't get more worked up about someone calling my kids brats, don't think I don't have that same mother bear instinct that others have. However, a not-so-bright girl with a pathetic job, saying something outright stupid, just isn't gonna get me riled. I'd rather get worked up about oh, say, Dwight killing Angela's cat.