The Last Day in Hell (a.k.a Kansas City): Part 2

In case you didn't catch it, part 1 was two weeks ago...read it before you read this weeks post. To catch you up if you did read it, when we last left our hero, he had just knocked on the next door...



The door creaked open to an elderly woman with thin, white hair and glasses thicker than my arm. She quietly asked what I was doing out on such a hot day and invited me inside. Perfect, I thought, this will be an easy one. Once inside a house it usually only took me a few minutes to get the sale made and I could be on my way, but this sale wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

“Now, what are you doing out on a day as hot as this?” She asked again as she handed me a drink of water. I started into my pitch, pointing out flaws in home design that made her house susceptible to break-ins and the benefits of our alarm system as she listened intently to what I had to say.

“Now you can use this system to contact the police or ambulance for anything, whether it be a medical emergency or for the police, and they can talk to you anywhere in the house through the speaker we’ll put right here!” I was acting excited as I spoke, getting ready to make my second sale of the day, when she said it sounded good. I pulled out the paperwork and asked her name just in time for her to run back to the kitchen.

I sipped my water as I waited, and she returned from the kitchen with a glass of water in hand. I assumed it was for her, but she handed it to me and asked “Now what are you doing out on a day as hot as this?” I paused as I took the second water glass and took a quick look around…calendars were pegged to the wall from as early as 1998, a large bottle of pills set open on the table…I realized I was in a very grey area when it came to sales. The last thing I wanted was for this old woman to wake up one day and wonder why the hell an alarm went off every time she tried to leave the house. I went through my pitch again to test the waters while getting started on the paperwork. I figured if she was lucid for a few minutes and did want the alarm I had better be prepared.

“So you can talk to cops or whoever through the system…do you want it?” I quickly asked, before the entire conversation was lost in the abyss.

“Sure I do! It sounds great!” She replied, as I silently celebrated as I asked for her information. About halfway thorough the paperwork she got up to go to the kitchen, and I decided I’d better expedite the process if I wanted to make this work. I downed the two waters sitting in front of me just in time for her to hand me a third as she asked “Now, what are you doing out on a day as hot as this?” I began to speed through my pitch only to have her exit once more to the kitchen. I quickly dumped my third into a nearby plant as she exited and waited patiently for my 4th glass of water.

“Now, what are you—“ I cut her short and went straight into it.

“It’s a security alarm, do you want it?” I asked bluntly, to which she surprisingly said yes. We finished the paperwork and I called our main office to schedule the technician to come out and install the alarm before she forgot about it again. I wanted things to go quickly before she walked into the kitchen for more water and took my sale with her. In my haste to get things done so quickly I neglected to realize the dreaded confirmation call…a call between the office and the customer to make sure I had explained everything properly and there was no surprise when the customer was billed $45 a month from now. I cringed as I turned to hand the old woman the phone to see her offering me another glass of water.

“Hello?” She spoke into the receiver as I sipped on what felt like the 10th gallon of water I had drank in that home. I listened inconspicuously to the conversation, only to hear her ask “now what is this for again?” I hung my head in agony over the 45 minutes I had just wasted pushing this sale on this poor old woman, when she responded “well I’ve always wanted one of those! That sounds fabulous!” I looked up in shock as she agreed to all the charges and she handed the phone back to me. I quickly hung up as our installer arrived, and sure enough he was greeted by a glass of cold water and an inquisitive old lady, who wondered “Now, what are you doing out on a day as hot as this?” I quickly informed her she had purchased an alarm system and slipped out the door before any objections could be raised.

I wish the story ended there, me with a sale and an old lady with a direct line to a police and ambulance dispatcher, but her son, who doubled as her caretaker, arrived home moments before the installation was complete. He swore up and down and me, claiming I had taken advantage of an old woman who didn’t know what was going on. To my credit, she actually defended us and didn’t care what she had bought, “I’ve got all the money in the world and these nice boys can take it for all I care.” Unfortunately, seconds after this statement, she handed me a glass of water and asked “Now, what are you doing out on a day as hot as this?”

Thus ended my life as a door-to-door salesman.

The Last Day in Hell (a.k.a Kansas City): Part 1

At 51 sales on the summer, my last day knocking doors in Kansas City needed to be amazing. I had initially wanted to hit 55 sales as a personal goal, but I was so burnt out on knocking on doors and being demoralized I was almost ready to settle. Steve (our boss and driver) dropped me off on the street I had started working the night before, and I started knocking. The first home had no answer, and as I walked through the humid Kansas City air towards the second home, I felt like dying.

Before my fist could connect with the oak, the door swung open to a 30-something black woman in a towel. “You look hot and I saw you coming!” She stated in a Kansas City-esk accent. “Why don’t you come in for a bit?” I looked down the street at the plethora of houses just waiting to reject me and I decided to oblige her.

It was a typical Kansas City house…a couch, a few chairs, an enormous big screen television that you have to wonder how someone on welfare can afford…the usual setup. As she motioned towards a chair for me to sit in, she laid on the couch and began asking me about how my day had been and what I was selling. This was also typical of Kansas City—there may be three shooting deaths a day in that town, but people sure were pleasant. I informed her of the alarm company I represented, the heat, the fact it was my last day, and she decided to celebrate. I got a little worried she might strike up the marijuana joint resting on one of her end tables, but instead she picked up the phone and made a call to her landlord.
“I got a friend over here and we need some ice cream and Sobé,” she proclaimed into the phone. “Hurry up, he’s got a job to do.”

Bewildered at the interesting choice of celebratory food, I quizzed her on her relationship with her landlord. He and her had been dating on and off for quite some time, but I got the feeling she took advantage of him to do things like bring her ice cream at 11:30 AM on a Thursday.

We spoke more about the alarm I was selling and she informed me she would love to have one, but couldn’t pay the $99 deposit our company requires. Still in sales mode, I informed her if that was the only problem, I could take care of it, and she decided to buy. I began to think the day might start looking up, but this was no ordinary sale. The law requires that any improvements made on a home be done by the owner, and with the owners consent, and this 30-something black woman in a towel was not the owner…her friend brining us ice cream, however, was.

It took three more phone calls and 45 minuets for the landlord to show up, but sure enough, when he got there he had ice cream, drinks, frozen candy bars, everything you could want on a cold day. Lucky for me, I was also going to get a sale. After fifteen minutes of convincing, I got a signature on the contract from him, which was all I needed. “I really don’t want this alarm thing in here, but I guess I don’t have a choice.” Those were the words we loved to hear…having someone buy something from you that they really don’t want was the mark of an excellent salesman. He exited the cool house back into the humid Kansas City heat, and I worked on finishing my ice cream bar, when suddenly the 30-something black woman in a towel hit me with something else.

“I don’t have any way to pay for this alarm, you know.” I had the ice cream bar half-way down my throat when she mentioned this tidbit and I nearly coughed it back up, but I managed to choke it down and ask for a clarification by what she meant. “I don’t have a credit card or checking account or anything. I just pay cash for this place.” I looked at my now useless contract, bemoaning the fact that I just spent two and a half hours waiting on ice cream in the hopes of a sale. I went to tear the contract in half and leave when she put me in quite the pickle. “I have his credit card though…” she stated. I looked at my contract, looked at the black, 30-something woman in a towel, and then at my watch. It was nearly 2 PM, I only had 7 hours left, and if I wanted to show anything for this day, I had to act.

I sat silent for a few seconds, staring at the signature on the dotted line of the contract, and noticed the small print underneath which read “The signee hereby declares intent to pay all charges associated…” upon seeing those little words I didn't need to read anymore. I had explained how much it cost and he signed the papers, so at this point it was out of my hands. I took the ‘borrowed’ credit card and finalized the sale, feeling justified in my actions. As the installation technician entered the house, the black 30-something woman in a towel thanked me for getting her an alarm system, and I knocked on the next door, which would be my next sale of the day.

More on my last day in Kansas City later.

Go to the zoo...

Door-to-door sales were pretty taxing, as you well know by now. We would knock for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and only have Sundays off to kick back and recoup for the next week. One day after Chet and I went to church, we decided we would use our time of to do some sight-seeing in Kansas City. We asked around about some interesting places to visit, and of all the places to go, the Kansas City Zoo sounded the most interesting.

Thirty minutes of driving found us at the zoo entrance, still in our shirts and ties from church, as we walked around the outside of the zoo, discussing what exhibits we might look at first. As we approached the ticket booth, we noticed the prices of the zoo were astronomical: 10 bucks a person. While this sounds like very little money now, $10 while you are living by $100 commissions is pretty steep. Naturally, we didn’t want to pay the steep charge, but we really wanted to get inside and flip off the monkeys (watch Anchorman). We scanned the area, not sure what to do, when we noticed the IMAX theater which linked to the zoo.

I led the charge as we walked past the main ticket booth towards the IMAX entrance, where a 60 year-old woman was tearing tickets and a velvet rope in a V shape herded zoo-goers towards her. We walked up to the first rope of the V on the right side and casually unhooked, walked through, and re-hooked the rope back in place. As I did so, I looked at the woman taking tickets, nodded to her, and she smiled and waved back as we waltzed into the zoo. We continued to talk about sales from the previous week, so as not to seem suspiciously giddy about our indiscretion, but once we were in the clear we couldn’t withhold our laughter any longer.

We proceeded to the monkey cage and flipped of the monkeys repeatedly, after which we returned to our apartment, triumphant.

Peeing

Just a quick note, most girls probably won’t like this story. Read at your own risk, girls.

Door-to-door sales can be a tough job, especially for someone who doesn’t like to intrude on other people. Most of us were like that when we started. It was hard enough for me to get through a pitch at a door, much less ask someone for something after they had already rejected me in the first place. One of the things I hated to ask was to use someone’s bathroom…as a result, I often found myself peeing under a bridge, in some bushes, behind a vacant house, or even in a co-workers shoes (see The Prank War). Thinking back, I’m surprised I felt more comfortable peeing in public than peeing in someone’s house.

I wasn’t the only who relieved himself creatively either. One of the guys who worked with us had to go #2 so bad one day that he found a house no one was home at and pooped in the backyard. He came back with only one sock…we all thought he was pretty funny, but his wife didn’t seem to agree. This was the first of many interesting reliefs over the summer…as time went on we all discovered the joy of peeing in water bottles while we were on the move. The first time I had to pee and didn’t have an option, Steve picked me up and threw me a water bottle. It took some time, but I eventually succeeded, and thus the trend started. We would be driving along, listening to the radio in silence, and we would suddenly hear the sound of a stream of liquid filling a plastic water bottle. At first this was quite comical, but it actually became fairly commonplace.

As time went on, it became normal to jump into the back of the van and find a pee-filled water bottle. We would dispose of our own waste every night, so the van didn’t get too full of refuse, but as time went on the peeing moved into new realms. Steve, or manager, would often come to the houses we were making a sale at to help close the deal. Steve’s favorite past-time quickly became asking to use the customer’s bathroom, and instead of peeing in the toilet, he would pee in the sink. We’re not sure why this was so hilarious, but it caught on. Instead of bragging about how many sales we got that day, we would brag about how many sinks we had peed in. This was a big change for me, since at the beginning of the summer I was embarrassed to use a customer’s bathroom, and now I was abusing them.

One evening, we were all waiting for Grady, one of the other salesmen, to come out of a sale so we could all go home. Taylor, another salesman, was sitting in the backseat drinking a fountain-drink from 7-11 when an idea hit him. He finished the soda and jumped behind the backseat into the trunk area of the van, where he proceeded to…not pee…but poop in his empty Styrofoam cup. About three seconds after the other 5 guys in the van realized what he was doing, we escaped the van before we felt like puking. Taylor remained in the van for a few minutes before exiting the trunk hatch with his prize possession, when we all informed him that he and his friend were both not welcome for the ride home. Taylor placed the poop-cup behind a tree just in time for Grady to come out of the sale, and as we all drove home in silence, Grady sat, wondering what the awkwardness had resulted from.

The next day, no one peed in bottles, cups, or even sinks. Except for Grady, but we made him drink his pee as punishment.

The Prank War

Chet and I don’t always agree on everything, and this can get us to war against each other, but one way to get us to forge together is to try and screw with both of us. It started pretty innocently…we were in our sales teams getting ready for the day, when someone from one of the other teams got a squirt gun and was squirting people with it. We thought “no big deal” and over the next few days a water fight occurred. We would pour a water bottle down someone’s shirt, they would get a hose on us, back and forth in a juvenile fashion, and no one got hurt. It was fun.
Jack was the son of a Japanese immigrant who had made a great living for himself in Southern California. He had been recruited and came out to Kansas City, but he was fun-loving guy…didn’t mind goofing around. Jack decided, in the midst of the water fight, that he would take things up a notch. Chet and I always seemed to stand out during the water fight as primary antagonizers, so Jack targeted us first. We got in the van, and Chet was driving, only to find the seat was soaked with water…lots of water. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but we had a half-hour drive out to our area, and the humidity didn’t allow for much evaporation; Chet had to knock all day with a wet butt, and the seat stayed wet for at least a week. We got Jack back in the water fight the next day with a couple buckets of water and thought the matter was put to rest, but Jack was no quitter.
We piled in the vans as usual on a hot, muggy Kansas City day to find our van reeked like something awful. After 10-15 minutes of driving we located the source—several cans of tuna fish, dumped into the storage bays below the seats…growing things. A few people vomited, and a few people gagged, and those with strong stomachs disposed of the disgusting science project-looking tuna. Chet and I exchanged looks and we knew this would not end well for Jack. Amidst the searching for the smell, we had found a pair of shoes…Jack’s shoes. “What kind of idiot, in the middle of a prank war, would leave his shoes in the hands of the enemy?” I laughed.
“Well what can you do with his shoes?” Someone else replied, wondering what you could possibly do to a pair of shoes that would be so vile. I didn’t even have to think.
As we drove, Chet and I plotted other ways to pay Jack back if the retaliated against our plan, including a severe antiquing (flour in the face), powdered milk in the bed (soaks into your pores and makes you reek for days), or maybe even killing his parents and making him eat them (like that one South Park…but not seriously).
After a long day of knocking with no sales, I decided it was time. We all piled out of the van, and everyone headed towards their apartment, but Chet and I walked towards Jack’s place. We placed the shoes next to the front door, in hopes he would realize we had kindly returned them, but before we departed, Chet stood watch while I unzipped and let loose a stream of urine I had been saving all day. The shoes began to absorb the pee at first, but they eventually began to fill. It was difficult to maintain a constant stream, Chet and I were laughing so hard, but after a few moments the job was done. We called it Operation PeeShoe.
Not much later, Jack’s team came back from knocking. Jack had a good day, a sale or two, and felt like celebrating. He had been wearing his walking shoes all day, and before going out for the night to celebrate, he wanted to get his shoes out of our van. Seeing they weren’t there, he went home, to find his shoes had kindly been returned. It was dark by now, and the poorly lit porch didn’t provide much opportunity to see what was coming. Chet and I watched from the distance as Jack untied and kicked off his walking shoes and reached for his pee shoes...
Jack finished the summer without changing shoes again.