12 02 02

Someone smarter
than me once said, ”No good deed goes unpunished”. Boy, were they
right. As the neighborhood mullets, we are in a position to have
our front door bell ring at least three or four times every and
every month by one or more of the kids who live close to us. All
of who are trying to get us to buy something or another. None of
which we need for any reason. The success rate for buying versus
refusing is about 145-1. Translated this means that we have
probably bought 145 things, which have been presented and only
turned someone down once. As I recall the one time I did refuse to
buy something was when a grown man had dressed up as a teenager
and was trying to sell me some magazine subscriptions. I would
have probably helped him out if it had not been for the fact that
he needed a shave, which I noticed…. after he told me he was in
the needed the money for some 7^th grade science fair
field trip. Another clue was the fact he was wearing a wedding
ring and driving a truck, with a woman in the passenger seat.

The other 145 times I have been hit up have…for the most part been
rewarding experiences. Now, I have to tell you that many times I
have just given these kids some money and told them to keep
whatever it is they are selling because I don’t need
anymore…magazines, greeting cards, wrapping paper or chocolate.
Especially chocolate. Chocolate is an old acquaintance of mine.
Not one of my friends, you understand, but an old acquaintance.
Sweet on the lips, forever on the hips is kind of our family
motto. I’m wearing chocolate from birthday parties twenty years
ago. We have a love /hate relationship. I love it…it hates me. I
can’t do chocolate. I’m certain there must be chocolate eaters
anonymous program somewhere in this country. I need to join.  I
can smell chocolate and gain weight just from the fumes. Well,
anyway you get the idea. Back to my story.

A month or so ago, one of the local six year old kids must have
gotten some sort of alert bulletin about how easy I was, so he
makes his way down here to sell me cookie dough. Says if he sells
enough of it he wins a computer. It’s very apparent that I’m his
first mark since he has a problem telling me what it is he’s
selling. His mother is with him and she wants to do the talking
for him. I ask her to just be quiet and let him speak as I feel if
I’m about to be done in, then at least let the kid do it and not
some parent. Anyway after about five minutes I get the drift of
his sales approach and agree to buy three —–three pound tubs of
cookie dough. That’s nine pounds. Then I tell him to walk off the
porch and go back to my office and ask my secretaries to buy
something.

He stands there for a minute or so, scuffing his toe and grabs his
mother’s hand to pull her up. She gets up to go with him and I
tell her …”No, let him go by himself…” She immediately protests
that he doesn’t know how to ask for the order and I tell her that
this is how he will learn. After several false starts and much
agonizing by the mother, he starts off …by himself. Mother is
looking frantic and worried. I get on the phone and tell my
secretaries to buy whatever it is he’s trying to sell. They do.
Each of them buys five tubs…that’s a total of thirty pounds of
dough added to my nine pounds makes us liable for thirty nine
pounds of unwanted cookie dough. In case you are wondering, this
will just about fill up a fifty-five gallon drum to the halfway
mark. I don’t need any of it. Next thing you know our young man
comes back to the front of the house with a new attitude and a
smile from here to Dallas…he has just learned the first rule of
salesmanship…..you can’t get the order unless you ask for it.