Travel On, Traveling Salesman

It’s bad enough that the “No Calls” List doesn’t work and we are all still plagued with sales phone calls–especially at dinner time. But now, we have an influx of traveling salesmen, too. And believe me–if I am not opening my door to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I am sure not opening it to an encyclopedia salesman. What do I need a set of encyclopedias for anyway? I have the internet. In fact, I had a set of encyclopedias and even the LIBRARY didn’t want them! I threw them out to the curb, and I am sure someone picked them up and is happily using them.

I worked as a telephone salesperson once as a kid–for about three days. It was a termite company. And the deal was I was supposed to call people up and tell them their neighborhood was infested with termites and that we had already booked dozens of jobs in their area. I then offered them a free inspection. My boss would show up at their house during the day when the man of the house was at work, with an empty jelly jar filled with termites and show it to the terrified housewife who signed up immediately because he only had one spot left in his book for the next six months. If she waited any longer, her house would be one story shorter. After about three days of praying that nobody would answer the phone at the numbers he gave me so I wouldn’t have to tell people that crap, I quit.

And ever since then, I have had a hard spot when it came to the lines that salesmen use. I could barely sit through the movie Glengarry Glen Ross without wanting to kick Alec Baldwin right in his brass balls. Hell, there were times when I wanted to punch out The Music Man.

So when I heard salesmen had invaded Persiphonia, it was time for signing more laws. I have a pen and I am not afraid to use it.

Here’s the whole sordid story . . .

From what I see and read in the papers, the economy in Metropolis isn’t in the greatest shape in every city. In fact, some cities are in very bad shape. I have heard of a lot of going-out-of-business sales and a lot of major businesses closing down. This is very serious. No Mayors want to see people unemployed. Then they can’t pay us taxes.

One effect of the current recession is that people who are out of work have resorted to old ways of making money. One of them is the old door-to-door salesman. They seem to be preying on the wealthier cities in search of lucrative sales. Persiphonia has a very healthy economy despite our consistent 40% tax rate. We have malls and designer malls and have recently opened a homeless shelter despite the fact that we really don’t have anyone to put in it. So, our city seems to have been targeted by door-to-door salesmen lately.

The Persiphonia Police Department, 36^th Precinct got a call the other morning from Velma Livingston out on Hammond Street, one of the nicer parts of town. In the background, they could hear quite a commotion. They hurried over to see what was going on.

Mrs. Livingston’s house was in shambles. Her living room carpet was covered with coffee grinds, marbles, fireplace ashes and wood shavings. A vacuum cleaner salesman was desperately trying to get his demonstration machine working while her three Yorkshire terriors, Tuffy, Spike and Sweetie were growling and chewing on the legs of his pants while he frantically tried to kick them off. Her two young twins Ramona and Rocco were sitting on the couch in their pajamas, spilling cereal all over the place and laughing hysterically. Mrs. Livingston was crying. In addition to being bipolar, Mrs. Livingston is an OCD clean freak, the poor dear.

The police finally arrested the vacuum salesman when Mrs. Livingston told them that he forced his way into her home and started pouring the stuff all over her beautiful new white carpeting. It looked ruined.

Later, it took the boys at Stanley Steamer 6 hours to clean the junk out of the carpet and the cereal out of the couch. Mrs. Livingston called the vacuum cleaner company, but kept getting put on hold. She’s writing a letter to our television news consumer reporter to try and recover the money it cost her to clean up the mess.

That is why I have enacted the Traveling Salesman Act of 2009. ALL traveling salesmen who want to sell products in Persiphonia have to report to City Hall first and fill out 11 forms in triplicate with a black pen. We require 9 pieces of identification including your third grade report card as well as 13 notarized statements from the company stating that any and all damage to the customer’s home will be the responsibility of the company. So many laws, so little time. This Mayor seems to do nothing but sign new laws lately.

And then, we will politely refer you to Harpo at our Help Desk where he will stamp DENIED in big red letters across your forms. We sell vacuum cleaners at the mall. Let them get their carpets dirty. We also sell Tupperware, bibles, encyclopedias, jewelry, Christmas decorations and kinky lingerie, so don’t even bother trying.

Today, I am rounding up all traveling salesman in the vicinity and passing them on to you. Hopefully you can find work for them so they don’t have get dressed up in a suit with a nifty bow tie, stick their feet in people’s half opened doors and bother them. Let them sell their vacuum cleaners in a store.

If your town requires entertainment today, I am sending along a lovely old recording of Roger Miller singing ‘King of the Road’ and a lovely set of encyclopedias. There are no kings of the road in Persiphonia. Not anymore.

Advertisement