Taking Care Of Business

Here in the UK, people are still allowed to come to our homes to get us to buy into some service or other that they just happen to offer. I like this as much as a root canal and if I see them coming, I simply ignore them and they go away. Sometimes they shove a business card or a flyer through my letterbox but as most of them wouldn't know how to spell the word 'business' and certainly don't want unfortunate customers/suckers getting in touch with them afterwards, they just leave.

I was doing the dishes this morning when one such individual knocked on my neighbour's door and I glanced through the frosted glass of my kitchen door to see a blob of orange moving around the driveway.

Drying my hands, I went to my front porch to get a better look and saw it was someone wearing one of those reflective motorway type jackets and as I removed a letter from my letterbox (yes they're STILL not pushing them all the way through so don't get me started on that), orange man picked up the noise like a vulture sensing a meal and came to my door. Damn.

Now at this point I need to say that when I first get up in the morning, I need to take a while to get my brain in gear and so I often wander around in my boxers until I know if I'm going for an exercise walk, going shopping or just going to stay indoors for a while. Different pants for different activities you see.

So there I was at my front door with the net curtain to one side, not really wanting to engage in conversation with anyone, given my state of undress. I immediately noticed this character had a badge on his jacket that said something like Beechcraft Tree Services and this rang a bell with me that I'd had this 'company' here before offering their services to cut my trees or trim my hedge or some such thing.

My one rule is very simple : I will NEVER hire anyone who comes to my house offering a service.

NEVER.

So I said no thank you before he'd even opened his mouth.

"Why not ?" he asked.

"I've already got your details if I want to call you" I said as I really thought I did. Have his card or flyer I mean.

"How did you get it ?" he asked

By now I wanted away so just let the net curtain drop and said "Through the letterbox I suppose. I donno."

As I walked back into my living room I heard him shout "LIAR" at me.

So I guess he wasn't the type to pop details through the letterbox then !! Quelle surpise.

I hadn't seen any vehicle outside and this was because it was parked round the corner. A minute or so later it slowly went past my house and even though my new friend couldn't possibly see me inside my house (God bless net curtains) it didn't stop him from shouting out in a cheerful voice........

PRICK !!

Now given that I was wearing boxers, it may have been that he was warning me that I was showing more of myself to the world than I'd ever want to show but somehow I think he was just a pissed off........well if I could do graphics as well as they did a while ago on Top Gear, I'd now be showing a little photo of a pie and a little photo of a key with a plus sign in between them.

Obviously I can't tell you what his tree/hedge trimming skills are like but I think he made it very obvious that those charm school lessons were a total waste of time.