Door to Door Part III

A couple of years ago I wrote about some interesting situations regarding door to door salespeople. I wrote about how some are kinda stupid, I wrote about how some are kinda scary (Part I), and how some are downright psychotic (Part II).

I don’t remember if I ever wrote about the time we were almost suckered into buying $14,000 windows? If I did I can’t find that post. So the short story version is, at our previous house we had aluminum windows and we were caught in the right mood by some door to door window salesmen who wanted to sell us triple-paned windows and promised to save 60% off our heating and cooling costs the first month, or they’d pay our electricity bill for a year. They also offered us a $100 gift card for a local gas station and I figured it was worth sitting through a presentation for that alone, and besides, the deal they had sounded pretty awesome. So, we sat through the extremely pushy THREE HOUR presentation. We even got to bang on their sample windows with rocks to see for ourselves how unbreakable they were. We were so impressed we wrote them a check for $100 for ‘good faith’ and signed our life away. It wasn’t until the next day that I got an extreme case of buyer’s remorse and went into full panic mode: we just agreed to pay over 14 THOUSAND dollars … for windows. Stupid much?

I called our electric company and asked them about the windows, and if they heard of this company and if they thought new windows would really knock 60% off our bill. She laughed. It was a kind, sympathetic laugh, but still, she laughed. I felt pretty darn stupid. She explained that we don’t live in Alaska and don’t need triple-paned windows, and they can agree to pay our bill for a year because they are charging us about 11 grand over what it should cost to replace our windows. We canceled the deal and got our check back, pronto. (We got to keep the $100 gas card.)

So in a nutshell, between that experience, and others (including falling for a scam involving a “poor, broke student trying to go on a school trip so buy this magazine subscription” we never got), I’m pretty against door to door salesman. I just can’t trust them!

It’s spring. And apparently spring means the door to door salesmen come out of the woodwork. Yesterday morning this guy knocked on my door:

No really. It was HIM! OK, fine if it wasn’t actually Eric Doyle, the puppet master from Heroes, it was his twin brother! He was dressed in a 70’s brown suit, and holding a pamphlet that said, “JESUS LOVES YOU”. I could see all this through the blinds in the window that faces the porch. I chose not to open the door.

Do you blame me? PUPPET MASTER from Heroes? SCARY!

I just pretended no one was home and as soon as he walked away I locked our security screen.

Yesterday while I was out with Melissa, Jack said some random guy wanting to sell us steaks came by. This isn’t a new one. We’ve had these guys come by before. I just LOL because seriously? Who’s going to accept RAW MEAT from some random stranger who knocks on your door? Well, obviously some people do or the steak guys wouldn’t be around still. To those people, I just bow to your braveness.

This morning my doorbell rings (sending my three rabid Cujo dogs into a frenzy) and when I peeked through the windows, it was some guy with a clipboard. This immediately reminds me of the time an insurance guy came knocking (with a clipboard) and I told him NOT INTERESTED and shut the door in his face, only to hear him say through the door, “but ma’am? I’m not a salesperson, I need to ask you about a car break-in that happened to your neighbor”.

I was so embarrassed.

So today I opened the door to the guy with the clipboard, and it’s another heavy-set bald guy, but this one looked more like Danny Devito than Eric Doyle the puppet master from Heroes. Unfortunately he wasn’t here to talk about car break-ins. He wanted to talk about my finances. LeSigh. I LOL’d at him then shut the door. I know, I’m mean. But I can’t help it. He did look like Danny Devito, though!

That really should be the end of this post. But it’s not. I wish it was, but.. it’s not. Because you’re not going to believe who rang my doorbell only 3 minutes after my beloved, adorable, and oh-so-vulnerable children got off the school bus today.

That’s right, Charles “Chuckie” Crandall Finster, the non-cartoon, grown-up, seemingly stoned and turned surfer-dude version rang my doorbell. (Seriously? CHUCKIE? From The Rugrats??)

And he had a clipboard.

DAMN THE CLIPBOARDS.

He muttered, “aw, hi ma’am. Ah am in the NAY–ber-hood… and like… we are having this totally tubular (he really said ‘awesome’) deal on new windows… and uh, like, I was just wondering… ”

I don’t know what he said after that. Cause I LOL’d again and exclaimed “NOT INTERESTED” and shut the door IN HIS FACE.

Then I threw up my hands and demanded to know why FOUR! FOUR solicitors have been at my house in two days?!

It’s definitely time to get that “NO SOLICITORS” sign–dripping with blood for added effect–hung up on our house with a picture of my three rabid cujo dogs.

And clipboards be damned: I’m not falling for it anymore.