Thursday, July 17, 2008

Sex, drugs, and death

Under the heading of "I never thought I'd post about stupid shit like this but continue to amaze myself" comes an extensive Houston Press piece on door-to-door magazine salesmen. I hate solicitors. Note: most of the little bastards are too lazy to walk up my driveway. The ones that aren't run back down it. On the other hand, being of a spiritual nature, I let the Saints and the JDubs walk.

That kid at your door with a magazine order form will tell you a story -- part sad, part hopeful. The truth will be infinitely worse than you can imagine.

A customer is a "Jones." A sales pitch is a "spiel," and there are all kinds of spiels — a school-spiel, cancer-spiel, you name it. These lies are known as a dirty canvass, and they're quite successful. Of course, there are natural salespeople who don't have to dirty canvass and can write ten or 12 sales a day, but the agents who can't snow a Jones and who come back empty-handed are known as WABs, weak-ass bitches. A WAB occupies a stratum in the caste system right below circus freak and just above whore. No one wants to be a WAB, so sometimes you have to dirty ­canvass.

If the MPA is unaware of dirty canvassing, then its only other choice is to somehow believe that door-to-door companies are the country's single-biggest employer of college athletes in the marching band whose parents are dying of cancer and who are competing for a scholarship to study theater in London.

The thing about a Jones is, you never know what you're going to get. Some male Joneses will buy any crappy magazine from an agent showing enough cleavage. Some will invite you in for a joint. Some will slam the door in your face or sic their dog on you.

Funny, they didn't mention my favorite - an ass-load of rock salt from a 12-bore...

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