Ding Dong!

The other night, just as Himself was scheduled to go out to a client meeting, the doorbell rang. We both went to answer, with Blackberry barking a terrible warning.

It was a nicely dressed, clean and handsome young man who was "finishing up some work in the neighborhood" and noticed that we might need to have some work done vis-a-vis our windows (?)

Let the record show that all of our windows are interchangeable storm/screen, in excellent condition.

We thanked him for coming and said we were not interested. He wanted to give us literature in case we change our minds. We said no, but thank you. He then persisted, wanting to engage us in conversation about the age of the homes in the neighborhood. We became less cordial, eventually having to just close the door. How rude of us!

I know door-to-door soliciting is a hard job; people doing it have to school themselves for ongoing rejection.

But, y'know, if we were thinking about replacing our windows, we would go to a couple of local window people and make an educated decision. We wouldn't sit around the house, waiting for a total stranger to come to sell us windows we know nothing about.

The guy with the clipboard who wants to talk about clean water hasn't been here yet this summer. He's usually been here and chased away by now. The driveway refinisher was here not long ago, oblivious to the beautiful driveway refinishing we had done last summer.

We were brought up to be polite. Himself does a better job of it than I do in these circumstances. It doesn't help that these people usually come during dinner. (Well, of course, that's the only time they can. Most people are out at work during the day and they certainly can't ring doorbells after dark. But still.) The solicitors have apparently been trained to take up as much of our time as they can; perhaps that is believed to increase the likelihood of a transaction.

But it is intrusive. They interrupt what we are doing for something we do not want. Coming into autumn, it's just a matter of time before it is the candidates dingdonging. Our township police department provides free door stickers repelling door-to-door solicitors. We don't have one. Yet. If I thought I could get one like the one in the picture, I prolly would. Because, you know, I wouldn't want the neighborhood children to feel like they couldn't ring -- I'm a firm believer in supporting the Scouts, the Band, the football team, all of those things.

While I was typing this the phone rang. It was the third person today wanting to either sell me something, beg for money for an unheard-of charity that is likely paying the caller more than I would give if I were going to give, or is making a "courtesy call" that I never stuck around to hear about. It's times like these that I become sympathetic to my husband's wish to "move out in the woods, where there's nobody around to bother me."