FREE MEAT!
When the doorbell rings in the middle of the day there truly are a limited number of
folks that I will find standing on my front porch. Generally they are of the salesperson
variety and for each one I have developed a pat response.
If they’re selling carpet cleaning I swing the door open and show them the hardwood
floors while telling them that we are really not in need of their services. I do carefully
fail to mention that the hardwood only covers the entry hall and living room. What they
don’t know won’t hurt me.
If they’re selling lawn services I let them know I have teenagers and teenagers need
to work because tired teenagers are good teenagers. No need to mention that I do
the majority of the yard work. If they are bold they are quick to point out the brown
spots in the lawn, I generally retort that the teenagers need a challenge.
Girl Scouts beware, my response is that I have one of those (Girl Scouts that is) and
we have a garage full of cookies. Boy Scouts: We have one of those too.
Housepainters: Our house is only three years old and I dearly hope we don’t need
new paint or I’m going to have to have a conversation with the last house painter we
had.
Encyclopedia salespeople (haven’t had that variety in a while): I’ll buy if they can sell
them to me cheaper than the cost of a library card. This was a response that I actually
learned from my parents when I begged them as a kid to invest in a set of
encyclopedias.
Housecleaning supplies: "I don’t clean" presented with a straight face and a slight
chin dip to the right as if I’d be happy to prove it to them if they’d only come inside
usually does the trick.
If it is meat they’re selling, as in my salesperson d’jour, I claim that we’re vegetarian.
The smiling man from Lucky Meat (a bad choice of names for a company selling meat
in my opinion) looked at me blankly, his smile slowly fading. Then he rev’d the smile
back up and informed me that they also sell chicken and fish. My eye twitched and I
cocked my head to the side. In a cheerful voice I told him that no, that wasn’t in our
diet either… but thank you. He wavered for a moment but did not offer to leave my
porch to rejoin his Lucky Meat Van parked across the street.
"How does free sound to you?" That truly wasn’t a response I was expecting.
"Free sounds pretty good but we don’t eat meat." I suppose to be truthful I’d have to
add the rest of the sentence: "We don’t eat meat on Friday’s in Lent but otherwise we
are quite carnivorous." Nope, left that little point out of the conversation.
"Do you like free? Doesn’t free sound good to you?" Now I guess if the guy had
whipped out a bag of frozen peas I would have had to capitulate but the insistence of
his responses chided me a bit.
Once again, I had my cheerful nice-woman response geared up and ready to go but
what I wanted to do was drop into a southern drawl (don’t ask me why) and say
something like "Well ya know, I’ve been vegetarian all my life but now ya offer meat for
free! I think I have a sudden hankerin’ for a steak. Bring one on in and I’ll fry it up!"
I slowly began inching the door closed while telling him that I really, truly hoped he
would have a good day. He just stood there in his white Lucky Meat uniform and
smiled at me. I knew at that point I’d have to close the door in his smiling Lucky Meat
face. "Really gotta go." I smiled and closed the door.
That had to have been one of the strangest encounters I’ve had with a salesperson at
the door.