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Well ladies and gentlemen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we should treat people with all of the love, respect, and dignity that we would desire for ourselves.
That’s irregardlessly of whether they deserve it.
Door to door solicitors, I’m talking to you.
Granted, I’m also talking to me.
As much as I strive to treat everyone with all of the love, respect, and dignity that I would desire for myself, I just can’t muster it for those who knock on my door that don’t hold the status of friend, family, deliverer of packages, or the engineer behind the periodic service of my queso fountain.
Instead, if one were to equate my treatment of door-to-door solicitors with the treatment I would desire for myself, one would suggest that I relish in snorkeling in the muck and mire.
Put the perception of my self-loathing aside for a moment.
I’ve had plenty of fun at the expense of these hapless souls over the years. The most memorable of those came courtesy of Hope, our beloved and dearly departed Pit Bull. After what she did to that guy who suggested I was a racist, I’ve got to think he’s still cleaning the muck and mire out of his britches all these years later.
A few months ago, a young lady knocked on my door trying to sell me something. She was on such a scenic route with ice breakers, greetings to Mag-B the Slab, and a wave to Wifey on the other side of the room, that I had to tell her to dispense with all of the niceties and get to her point.
When she finally uttered the word ‘solar’ in her pitch, I scoffed loudly, told her it was a scam, and then closed the door on her.
While she was still standing at my door wondering what just happened, I fetched a marker, a sticky-note, and my writin’ hand (the right one), and fashioned my own ‘No Soliciting’ sign. Shortly afterward, after my victim had departed the premises, I put that new sign in the window of the front door, right next to the alarm company sign that’s been there since before we moved in.
That’ll show ’em.
At least it did for about a month.
One day the doorbell rang.
We weren’t expecting any friends or family.
There were no packages for us in any of the delivery trucks which happened to be in the neighborhood that day.
The queso fountain was running just fine and was passing the occasional jalapeno a lot better than Mag-B the SLab does.
There was a hand-made ‘No Soliciting’ sign in the window designed to ward off evil spirits and other doorbell predators.
Maybe it was someone passing by who just wanted a cool refreshing drink of water from the hose.
I answered the door, and it was a young blonde headed fellow who hadn’t skipped leg day or any other day in a while.
“Hi sir, I don’t want to take a lot of your time, and I understand you have a ‘No Soliciting’ sign. I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to consider a special we’re running on our pest control services.”
He then pulled one of the most common tricks in the industry by invoking my neighbor’s name. “Your neighbor Mr. Jones (not his real name) has taken advantage of this deal.”
The thought here is that maybe if my neighbor Mr. Jones (not his name) fell prey to the siren song of solicitation, maybe I would too.
“Yeah I’m not interested in keeping up with the Joneses.”
He then left, and I pondered whether I needed something bigger than a standard sized sticky note to keep these idgits off my doorstep.
And then, things got quiet for the next few months.
Friends, family, package delivery, and queso fountain service were the only reasons I had to answer the door.
The sign was being respected.
Last month, Wifey and I made an investment in a camera system. We put a few at strategic places on the property and installed a doorbell camera as well.
Given the amount we invested, it just didn’t seem right to leave that ‘No Soliciting’ sign on a sticky-note in the window of the door. Instead, I printed a label and put it directly on the doorbell camera.
Anyone pushing that button is going to see the sign and know that they’re entering into an unspoken agreement that certain behavior at my doorstep is not welcome.
While applying that label, I was able to inadvertently test the functionality of the camera and make sure that it could pick up motion near said device.
The motion in this case was some old bald guy affixing a ‘No Soliciting’ sign to the doorbell camera.
I’m still trying to figure out who that guy is.
Do I really have to tell you what happened within 24 hours of putting that label on the doorbell camera?
Of course I do. You’ve gotten too far into this vapid twat-wafflery for me to ditch out without providing a return on your investment.
The day after the new doorbell camera captured some old bald guy affixing a ‘No Soliciting’ sign to the aforementioned device, the same solicitor from before appeared at my door.
Given that the device was still new, I didn’t even have the presence of mind to answer the door from my phone instead of using an archaic method like actually answering the door and talking to this guy face to face. At the same time, I was expecting a delivery that afternoon from someone other than the dill-hole who arrived.
If I had thought of it before answering the door, I would have announced that the doorbell camera was stuck in telescopic mode and asked him to back up to the middle of the street to give me his pitch from there. At best, he would have backed into traffic and self-selected right out of the gene pool.
Alas, I opened the door and guess who it was.
He had either forgotten he was here before, or was pushing boundaries.
I looked out at the street. “Are you here with a delivery?”
“No, I’m here to talk about pest control services. Who are you using right now?”
Ladies and gentlemen, there are only two appropriate responses to that question when both you and the other guy know full and well that the unspoken civil contract of a ‘No Soliciting’ sign has been breached.
Option 1: “Well normally I just use a ‘No Soliciting’ sign, but you’ve exposed the margin of error in that approach.”
Option 2: “That depends. How’s your literacy?”
Rest assured, I used one of those responses, and he left with all of the respect and dignity he could muster, coupled with all of the self-loathing contempt I could convey.
