Thursday, July 28, 2011

Tip for the day

Wanna know the quickest way to not sell me books door-to-door?

So this girl shows up at my door and knocks. And waits. I see her and decide I am not interested in answering the door so we might have hidden quietly. A couple of minutes, she knocked again. A few minutes later, knocked again. By this time, I was annoyed. I marched down the stairs, open the door and she said, "Oh, did I wake you, it took you a long time to answer." I told her no, I was awake just ignoring the door and then asked her what she needed. She began to open her bag of books.

Me: "this is a non-soliciting neighborhood."
Her: "Oh really? Everyone is so nice here."
Me: "Nice isn't what non-soliciting means. It means you are not allowed to sell things here."
Her: "Oh, well (insert names of my neighbors) took a look at what I had."
Me: "I'm sure they are great, but I am just not interested. We have a ton of books and are trying to pay for private school."
Her: (turning to Anna-Kate/ignoring me) "I bet you don't know why flamingos are pink, do you?"
AK: "Yes, I do."
Her: (clearly, shocked) "Oh really? How do you know?"
AK: "We go to Disneyworld and I learned all about them at Animal Kingdom where we lived in May."
Her: "Oh, I LOVE Disneyworld. I am actually going to go work there in a few weeks. I get to pretend to be Princess Belle."
(Insert my eyes getting huge and giving her the total stink eye)
AK (turns to me) "What does she mean, Mama?"
Me: "Thanks alot" (close door).

So to summarize. 1) If someone doesn't answer their door, they don't want to talk with you. Go away. 2) When they politely decline your offer, go away. 3) Do not ignore the adult after being told they aren't interested and try to peak the interest of their child. This will not ever work. 4) Do not, under any circumstances, ever tell a young child that you "play" someone who in their eyes is real. I mean really, she could have just said, "Hi, I pretend to be the fake Belle. Did you know Santa, the tooth fairy and every other show/book that you read isn't real? Yep, say goodbye to your imagination kid!"

Urgh. And, you're welcome for that tidbit of wisdom for today.

4 comments:

The Levy's said...

Annihilate her NOW!

Holbie said...

And having a dog with no manners is one advantage when dealing with door-to-door salespeople. Usually when someone comes to my house I've got someone on a toilet or someone without underwear. That quickly scares them. Added bonus if I carry a cooking item or telephone with me when I answer the door.... ;)

Whitney said...

I also greatly dislike the girls who come around selling $100 'educational' kids books - we've gotten it a lot in this neighborhood and they are Hard to get rid of! Baby spit-up has been a convenient excuse the last few times :)

Mom B said...

We used to just let Matt deal with them....especially the phone call ones. :-) He was great at saying no, and would drive them crazy with questions. Ha! When the person on the phone realized he/she was talking to a kid, they'd give up!