The Ann Nilsson Primer

Being a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman is man's work.  Well, most of the time.

I didn't know very many travelling door to door encyclopedia saleswomen, and there was only one in my crew:  Ann Nilsson.  Ann was quite a piece of work.  Somewhat enigmatic, whenever I thought I had her figured out, she would show a heretofore unseen side of her.

Ann was Swedish and blonde, with a figure women die for.  If that creates the image of an airhead walking through life in a haze, that was definitely one aspect of her.  She was 24 years old, and had been living in Canada for three years.  She claimed to have known no English when she moved there, but by the time I met her her English was almost flawless, with barely a trace of an accent.

She did pretty well at selling, which is amazing because she had no sales skills to speak of.  She couldn't remember the pitch, would get confused and correct herself, and pretty much just screw up anything and everything.  But she got in the door because she was a woman, and cute.  Her non-threatening demeanor disarmed the most hostile and suspicious of homeowners, and that was 90% of what she needed.  If she had been any better at selling, or even just a little bit more confident and a tiny bit more aggressive, she would have been a sales powerhouse.

Nevertheless, she sometimes showed a kind of confidence and self-possession that was remarkable and totally unexpected.  Here's a story for example:

Just a few minutes walk from our Vancouver head office was a strip bar.  Mitch had taken me there for lunch one day.  I couldn't fathom the idea of going for lunch to a place with naked women dancing on stage, but I certainly wasn't going to chicken out in front of a friend and coworker, so we went.  A month later, Ann was now part of the team, and we all had had a road trip together behind us.  We were back in Vancouver getting ready for our next trip, and Mitch suggested to us that we all go to the strip bar.  I guess he wanted to see her reaction, which was certainly going to be either embarrassment, refusal, or indignation.  Or all three.

But without a pause, Ann cheerfully agreed.  This was not part of the plan.  "Oh, we don't have to," said Mitch.

Ann replied, "No, let's go!  What are you afraid of?"  That's not a challenge any of us could let go unanswered, so off we went.  As we approached the front door, one of us asked Ann if she was sure that she wanted to go in, because we really didn't have to.  She insisted, so in we went.

There we stood, just inside the doors of the strip bar.  Mitch Clinton, Andy Bailey, Andrew the Mooch, Nathan Remington, and I were every bit as uncomfortable as we had hoped to make Ann.  We awkwardly shuffled our feet and stared at the floor as Ann smiled and thought less of us with every passing moment.  Never had I imagined that I would ever be in a strip bar and want to stare only at the floor.  This was the experience of a lifetime.

Though it was obvious to everyone that her victory was total, Ann decided to toy with us just a little more.  "Let's go sit by the stage!" she suggested.  We were in no position to refuse if we were to hold on to any vestige of our manhood, so off we shuffled to the stage, trying not to bump into anybody while staring so intently at our shoes.  "Wow!  That lady's really pretty!  Don't you think so, guys?"  Ann was just playing with us at this point.  After a minute or so, she finally showed us some mercy and asked, "Would you boys like to go now?"  We all agreed with various grunts and nods of relief, and so we got up and made our escape.

Ann was one of the gang, for sure.  I'm sure there will be plenty more stories that involve her, so for now consider yourselves introduced to Ann Nilsson.