Door to Door Salesmen BEWARE!!!!

 

Aaron's been awfully creative lately and I just can't help share some of his columns!  This is a true story, absolutely nothing has been added to increase the humor of this particular incident.   But, I have to add that this same guy had been at our house just a few weeks earlier right at lunch time.  He basically barged in the door without my consent and began his rambling that lasted about 30 minutes.  I finally got rid of him by telling him I would not be making any decisions about buying his "product" without my husband's consent.   I had a good mind to tell him off about being respectful of people's time when they are obviously busy trying to prepare lunch and getting tired children off to their naps.  I wasn't so happy when I walked in the door a few weeks later and saw him sitting at my kitchen table AGAIN!  Anyway, Aaron's much better at telling stories than I am.  So, here's his recalling of the incident.

Timing is everything

By Aaron Wade

Hemingford Ledger

I talk about my kids a lot in this column. With three preschoolers I have little time to experience anything else. I’ve said it before but I will remind you that things are very chaotic around my house. Yes, I have my parental outbursts of “Knock it off!” and “Do you want to go to timeout?” But I’m getting used to the hectic pace of life.

It became apparent to me just how hectic our household is the other night. We had just returned from a hurried dining experience (we have to hurry and eat before we get kicked out of the restaurant), my wife went and ran some errands and I threw the kids in the bathtub.

For Father’s Day, the kids got me an MP3 player, so while they were taking a bath, I was playing with my new gadget. I got the kids out, dried them off and began the process of putting on pajamas. This process is kind of like a branding. I wrangle the nearest kid and hold them down and apply clothing while the other two run to the far corners of the house to avoid being next. I usually aim for the smallest one first, because she is the easiest to catch.

While I was doing so, one of the boys came in to her room and said, “Dere is someone at da door.” With my headphones in, I hadn’t heard the doorbell ring, so I peeked out the window and a gentleman was standing on our doorstep. I didn’t know who it was and I debated even answering it. But I noticed that the door was already half ajar so there was no way to pretend that we weren’t home. Bryce had evidently opened the door in his birthday suit, foreshadowing what was to come for this guy.

I usually have empathy for salesmen. I work for a newspaper after all and on a weekly basis, I am out pedaling advertising. Sometimes rejection isn’t easy to take. So I figure if a guy has enough guts to ring my doorbell, I’ll at least be polite. But this couldn’t have been worse timing for this salesman.

As I opened the door, three little sets of feet followed. Camden, my oldest greeted the guy warmly, even extending his hand for a handshake to which the salesman didn’t reciprocate. Strike one.

The guy looked at me with huge eyes and asked, “How many kids do you have?” I replied that I wasn’t sure and I was still awaiting a paternity test on the oldest two.

He asked if he could come in and being the polite guy I am, I let him.

Now I would usually be horrified if my kids acted the way they did when company was over, but in this case I had to keep myself from laughing. The guy laid out his paperwork on the kitchen table. I pulled up a chair beside him as did my daughter. I actually think I saw smoke come out of his ears when she proceeded to get up out of her chair, walk across the table and his paperwork and into my lap. She then got down and repeated the path three times before I finally put an end to it.

Shortly after, my oldest son gets in the mix. He had found my tape measure (which I had been looking for by the way) and he came over with about three feet of tape extended like a sword. He poked it inches away from the guy’s face as if he were one of the Three Musketeers issuing a challenge. Seeing the potential danger for eye-loss, I made Cam contract the tape measure.

Minutes later Camden was back, this time with wooden spoons. He was drumming on one of the chairs, then pretended the guy was a cymbal and smacked him on the leg. Actually, the kid was just playing and it was more of a delicate thud. The salesman proceeded to grab the spoons from Camden’s hand and lay them on the table beside him. Strike two!

The guy asked me if it was like this every night or just because company was over. I said, “This is pretty much par for the course.” He told me he was going to go home and double check to make sure his wife had taken her birth control. Rude, but funny.

My wife had arrived home a little later. The final straw was probably a mixture of her bluntness and the fact that Bryce had stripped off his pajamas and was gallivanting around the house. Regardless, I think the guy got the hint that it was time to go. Strike three, he’s out!

I usually don’t condone such behavior from my children, but if someone has the nerve to breakup our bedtime routine, there is no need for false pretenses. And if you have problems with solicitors, I’ll be happy to rent my kids out to you. I won’t be liable for damages of course.