It was late afternoon and I was relaxing at home after a day in the office. I was taking the time to read the newspaper before changing out of my shirt and tie. My three children were playing with friends in the front yard. My wife was in the kitchen preparing dinner.
This was a vignette such as one might have seen in an episode of Ozzie and Harriet or Leave it to Beaver. There is a warm feeling to which such a scenario gives rise, that one is a king in his castle, living the life of Riley. Regrettably, some castles are subject to the occasional siege.
The domestic tranquility I was enjoying was disturbed by someone knocking on the door that led from the kitchen area into the attached garage. The disturbing of domestic tranquility was not unusual — we had three children under the age of twelve, after all — but no one ever knocked on that door. The overhead door to the garage had been opened so that the children could get to their bikes and toys. My kids often used that door to come into the house. Their friends were frequent visitors at our house and would no more have knocked before entering than if they were at their own homes.
My wife answered. Although I was only half paying attention, I could make out that this was a door-to-door salesman who wished to demonstrate a vacuum cleaner. My wife explained that she was in the middle of cooking supper and, in any case, was not interested in a new vacuum. The peddler persisted but my wife was adamant in her refusal to listen to his pitch. The back-and-forth did not seem to accomplish the aim of getting him to leave the house. After several iterations of this dialogue, I concluded that it was time for me to get involved.
It was only a few steps from the family room to the kitchen area. I saw a thin man in his thirties wearing a rumpled suit several sizes too big and needing a much better haircut. He was in the process of unboxing a vacuum in preparation for demonstrating it. He gave the impression of someone recently paroled for breaking-and-entering and unable to secure any other form of honest employment. His suspected former occupation would explain why he had chosen to enter the home through the garage rather than using the front door.
I am seldom receptive to any unsolicited sales pitch. I consented once to sitting through a demonstration of a Kirby vacuum as a favor to the coworker whose daughter had just begun selling them. I am certain that Kirby makes a quality product and the one she brought certainly showed that there was additional dirt in our carpets that its superior design and performance would remove far better than the Hoover we had been using. On the other hand, $1000 in 1980 was a lot of money and I concluded that we could live with a bit of dirt down in our carpets where even the most fastidious of visitors would be unlikely to notice it. My coworker’s daughter seemed genuinely astonished that we unwilling to whip out our checkbook on the spot.
I am equally unreceptive to salespeople who call during inconvenient times. Before we gave up our landline, prior to the do-not-call list and caller ID, this was a regular occurrence, particularly during evening meals. I assume that a person working from a call center could put in an entire eight-hour shift bothering the unsuspecting during a two-hour window in each of the four main time zones of the United States. For several years after, my children found considerable amusement in recounting my advising one such individual that I was quite fond of the windows currently installed in our house and would not be interested in considering those in which he was attempting to interest me.
What I find more irksome by far than salespeople is someone’s arguing with my wife. (Even I am loath to do this.) This was seldom to be excused (unless I am the other party) and certainly not on the part of an itinerant peddler. “What part of “We’re not interested” do you not understand,” I demanded, loudly. I did not wait for him to answer. “Pack up your vacuum and get out of my house!”
He might not have taken my wife seriously but he did me. He left via the same door by which he entered while I stood there silently congratulating myself on having repelled the invader.
I do not recall the exact words of the conversation my wife and I had immediately after. Based on analogous experiences, I suspect she said she had had the situation under control — this was clearly untrue or it would not have been necessary for me to intervene in order to get the salesman to leave — and that I had treated him quite harshly, which was true but amply justified under the circumstances.
We did not have time to debate the finer points of our respective positions because, at that moment my son, Matthew, came through the same door by which the peddler had just left. He was beaming. “Look what that man just gave me,” he said, holding out a gerbil.
“What man?” This was intended as a rhetorical question since I already knew the answer. I was out the door in a flash hoping to corral the salesman I had just ejected from my house so I could return the rodent.
There were only children in front of the house. There was not another car or person in sight. It was as though our home had been propelled through a portal to a different dimension and was now situated in a ghost town.
“Was it the salesman who gave you the gerbil?” I asked. My son’s classmate, Garrett, spoke up. “I told him not to take it.” Of course you did, Garrett. You were clearly paying attention to your parents when they told you to be wary of strangers offering gifts, unlike the child of the same age living in my home.
I turned to my attention back to Matthew. “Did you see where they went?” His face had the sort of quizzical expression one might expect to see if one had suddenly begun speaking in a foreign language. Garrett, on the other hand, was apparently bilingual and helpfully described the vehicle, pointing in the general direction it had gone. I would not have been surprised if he had memorized the license plate number. He would have been invaluable to a police sketch artist if it had come to that, I think.
I took off in my car at a speed no doubt in excess of the posted limit and headed into a nearby subdivision, guessing that the peddler wished to find the most fertile land into which to next scatter seeds. I rounded a corner and spied a car matching Garrett’s description. Two men, one of whom I recognized from a few moments before, were making their way up the front walk of a home. The other man was dressed better. I suspect he was training a new recruit in the tricks of door-to-door commerce.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Did you just give my son a gerbil?”
“He said he wanted one,” the well-dressed man replied.
“Are you out of your mind! Of course, he said he wanted one! Look, I’m the city manager here and I know you don’t have a peddler’s license. Here’s what you’re going to do. You going to drive back to my house and pick up that gerbil. Then you’re going to leave town because I’m calling the police.”
The part about not having a peddler’s license was a complete bluff but I judged it worth a try. Years of experience fielding citizen complaints about peddlers had taught me that they almost never bothered to stop at City Hall to get a license. Years of experience as a city manager had taught me to improvise.
I didn’t wait for a response but drove back to my house. Much to my surprise, the two men returned. There was no argument. The well-dressed one took the gerbil and placed in a cardboard box on the back seat where it was greeted warmly by several more of the species.
This is how I imagine the beginning of the salesmen’s itinerary playing out. An experienced peddler has recruited another individual to join him in the trade in some variation of multi-level marketing. He stops by his home to pick him up. As the recruit is getting in the car, he says, “Before we make some calls, I need to swing by the pet store to pick up some gerbils.” The novice is uncertain how buying gerbils fits with the plan to demonstrate vacuum cleaners but says nothing. It occurs to him that they might be used to demonstrate the device’s powerful suction. He prays there is some mystery to this business, one not involving the maiming of small, helpless rodents, that will be revealed to him as the day goes on.
I did not call the police. They had much better things to do and I was confident the peddlers were leaving town as fast as they could. They had to find somewhere to get rid of their supply of gerbils. I didn’t care how so long as it didn’t involve my kids.