Andrew the Mooch - Part I

In my six months as a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, a lot of people came and went.  Most are forgotten or half-forgotten, because they just came on one road trip, and then silently disappeared as soon as we got back to Vancouver.  You see, one generally does not announce beforehand that one is leaving a religious cult.

One road trip.  That's the "mode" average for a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman.  If you came back for the second road trip, you were usually in it for the long haul.  The only 2-tripper I knew was Andrew the Mooch.  He was one of the worst salesmen I ever met.  He was geeky, awkward, misanthropic, and he mumbled.  Not big on eye contact.  I wonder if he had Asperger's syndrome.  And did I mention that he was a MOOCH?

The thing is he was so shameless about it.  As I've mentioned several times, except for transportation, every member of the crew was responsible for paying his (or her) own expenses.  So we split the cost of the motel room and either bought our own food or chipped in to get something together (especially things like oil or ketchup, where one unit could service several individuals).

Well, after his week of training, Andrew came on the road with us, and as it turns out, he just took some spare pocket money with him.  What the hell was he thinking?  When we checked into the motel room, the mooching started.  (Let me say I have no idea if he payed his share of the motel or not.  I hope Mitch didn't get stuck with a double portion.)  We had all gone shopping for groceries: bread, spreads, fruit, cereal, pasta, sauce, etc.  Of course, Andrew couldn't buy anything, since he was broke.  Look; we were all pretty nice people (we were Canadians, after all), and lacked the constitution to refuse a companion's request.  And at first, we were all quite magnanimous about letting him mooch off us.  What's a couple pieces of bread, after all?  What's a tomato?  What's a banana?  No problem.

Of course Andrew not only continued, but got more brazen about it with every passing day, and the rest of us started feeling just a little bit taken advantage of.  That's when the little subtle comments and hints started coming his way.  "So, Andrew, you keeping tabs about what you owe us?"  Andrew would just shrug, with a little smile on his face.  Maybe he suspected we were kidding.

We started talking about him behind his back to relieve our frustration.  "Can you believe he asked for an orange?  He has no money and no food, but he really needed my orange!"  "And he refused my offer to buy him a box of No-Name corn flakes, but he keeps mooching my Honey-Nut Cheerios!"

Mooching became such a routine for him, that even I, the one most friendly to him of all the crew, started getting exasperated with him.  One day he asked me for a couple slices of bread while reaching into the bag for them!  I told him, "You know, it's polite to wait to take something until after you get permission".  This may be the harshest I had spoken to a person in quite some time (perhaps I was British in a previous life).  He looked away, kinda embarrassed for a change.  Of course, he took the bread.

Well, whaddaya know.  This story is turning out to me much longer than I expected it to be.

To be continued . . .