Door To Door

      He thought hours; pictured the scene. He replayed this situation over and over. He thought, I could just walk right up to both of them calmly, and shake their hands. Smile, I gotta remember to keep that up. Smile d****e. And did the d****e smile? Not in the end.

      In his head, it went as smoothly as any imaginary exchange between projected representations of memory and a person's own, practiced script could go. Refined and meticulously re-phrased , his speech's execution was almost poetic. If only it weren't strictly in his head.

      His beginnings were always the same. He'd remind himself to maintain certain physical quirks he despised about himself: Straighten your posture, smile, but not too much. Keep your eyes open and un-squinted, as not to seem disinterested or tired. But not too much. Be enthusiastic with that d****e-bag style of yours, but not too much. Bring spearmint gum, but remember to spit it out on your way to the door. Do not shuffle your feet; do not walk too fast or too slow. And that goes for moving in general...be graceful...be fluid with your movements. Think about every movement before you make it, and be precise. Of course, you know this goes for every syllable walking out of that douchy mouth of yours...remember, the words should walk out at a steady pace. No words that skip out; that spill out or melt out from this tongue! Articulate and shape those d****e-like lips to produce a musical presentation of vacuum domination! Sell it like the salesman you know you are. You know you've got it in you. Make these yuppies think Nova Vacuums suck harder than any of their wives or secret boy-toy lovers. They'll buy it. I know they will. Remember when shaking hands to grip with force, both during introductions and after you take their check...but not too much.

      No sale was made. Neither that day or ever.

      While diving head first into a fumbled hello, he dropped both his briefcase and the three thousand dollar vacuum on the Riley family's only section of hard-wood floor in the house; in the entrance before the immediate living room. The handshakes went terribly wrong. When he grabbed Mr. Riley's hand, sweat from his nervous palms literally made the handshake glide without completion. Mr. Riley politely wiped his hand on the denim covering his thigh. The handshake with the wife was even worse. A productive salesman does not introduce himself by mispronouncing his own name and squeezing a woman's hand half the size of his until she actually says, “You're hurting my hand.”

      In addition to grabbing the family's house cat and trying to kiss it, little Mr. Riley Jr. was rudely interrupted by his mother hurrying to hide him away after a very non-salesman-like compliment. When the little tyke bounced his way out with a G.I Joe figurine, the salesman-like thing to say would have been, “Hey sport, what's your name?” or “Oh, is this your son? How old, may I ask?” Then a lead-in to why this vacuum is the vacuum to choose for a family. Something about how much less parents have to worry about grit, grime, and mildew where their children play most. Instead, this is what was said: “Fantastic! You have a kid? What a cute kid. Oh, he's gonna enjoy this vacuum even more than you two! Especially as he gets older. Man, you guys will be cleaning this thing constantly!”

      By now, the only thing happening in the room was Mr. Riley courteously thanking the man who claimed to be a salesman, and suggesting he leave before the police were called. But a salesman's job is never done. A plead went forth to Mr. Riley to at least listen quickly to a pitch filled with reasons why the 2011 models of Nova Vacuums were a must-have in the modern American home. Mr. Riley surprisingly obliged. He curtly said, “You have thirty seconds.”

      What came out of the salesman's mouth was neither a pitch nor anything any decent human being should hear as a sales pitch. Instead of the flawless presentation a proper salesman should expect from himself, this improper sales-d****e repeated his thoughts from an hour earlier verbatim...yep, even the part about yuppie-wife blow-job intensity.

      The cops did happen to make their grand cameo, and another salesman was fired today from Nova Vacuum INC. That's okay, Josh was a s****y salesman anyway...kind of a d****e-bag too.

Reviews

[DavidRyanM]

I dig it, man. I don't think I've read anything of yours that was so comedic, but this was great. The only thing, you forget the "t" in thought at the beginning. The last lines were fantastic, too. The whole thing was really. You definitely have the interaction between characters down. And I'm pretty sure the way he thinks about his posture and everything else is the way my mind is always working.