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...