One time back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman we went to Edmonton, Alberta. The trip was atypical for two reasons: first, it was a big city, which travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen tend to avoid. Second, two crews from the Vancouver office met up there at the same time. I'm not sure what the thinking was, except maybe to give us a chance to compare notes and pitches and see how other people do their selling.
I remember four folks from the other crew in particular. The crew leader was a short skinny friendly athletic kind of guy with a big laugh. He kinda reminded me of Ray Liotta in Goodfellas. Then there was a girl woman die-hard chip-on-the-shoulder angry feminist. (How do these people end up as travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen? For that matter, how did I?) I remember I asked her once what she thought of Camille Paglia and she almost had a brain aneurysm right there in front of me. I avoided talking to her about anything but dinner after that.
One night we all went out to a bar for dinner. Several months on the road with my crew had made me so crude that I shudder to think of how I used to speak back then. It took me several months after quitting and a number of notable missteps to reintegrate myself into polite society (and some might say that I still have a way to go). The feminist lady person had gone to powder her nose, and I leaned over to Ray and asked him what it was like to be on the road with her all the time. He kinda shrugged and smiled and said that she was nice but it was just important to avoid topics that made her angry. "What a b**ch!", I exclaimed. Ray was shocked into uncontrollable gales of laughter which the more he tried to suppress, the more he laughed. He just managed to get himself under control before Gloria Steinem returned.
The third guy from the other crew was Crazy Sheldon and the fourth, and his interaction with Andy Bailey, will have to wait for another post. Stay tuned!
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