Mr. Door-to-Door

A while ago, a friend of mine posted something about one of those weird door-to-door solicitation people; we just had one of those this morning. Our neighborhood is mostly made up of of families with small children, but there are also a couple of singles who tend to react with wariness whenever anything out of the ordinary happens--that includes me. Last year, we had a guy going door-to-door claiming he was taking donations for the Heifer Project, and that the college was working in cooperation with Heifer on this. It seemed odd that he asked for an egg, and said he was planning to trade it to one of the neighbors for another thing. I called the college, and they claimed to know nothing about it; when I called the Heifer people, they also claimed to know nothing about it, and added that it wasn't their policy to solicit donations in this manner. Hmmm. Another call to the college resulted in the resident spin-doctor doing her job a little too well. No cookie for the college! Later, however, it turned out that the right hand just had no idea what the left hand was doing, and that it was indeed legitimate.

Anyway, this morning, one of these guys showed up again. It was on the same level as those magazine subscription guys. I was getting ready to take the dog out, and she was barking furiously at the door, which led me to believe there was something going on outside--half the time, her barking seems to be for no good reason. So, out we went, and there was this fellow with a backpack up by the dogwoods. Dog barked some more, and her hackles were up; she was not at all pleased to scent someone who didn't belong up by the dogwoods. The conversation was carried on across the yard; it went something like this:

"Does your dog eat people?"

"Yes."

"Will he eat me if I come any closer?"

"Yes. I really wouldn't come any closer if I were you."

"I'm selling an all-purpose cleaning solution. Is that something you'd be interested in?"

"No."

"Oh.. well, thank you. Have a nice day."

Poor dog. Well.. no one else needs to know it was shameless slander.