I Was a Travelling Door to Door Encyclopedia Salesman

Would you believe it: I was only a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman for six months, and my memories of those wacky times have now been filling the pages of this blog for . . . six months!  I don't know exactly how many more stories there'll be, but my feeling is that we're less than halfway done.  And I've still got some good ones up my sleeve :) At any rate, thank you, kind reader, for following me thus far.  Maybe you'll follow me just a little farther. And bring some friends :)

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 ...

(Continued from Part I ) Even though on the road we saved money by getting a motel room with a kitchenette and cooking our own meals, we weren't fanatical about saving money.  We were young and wanted to have some fun too.  So more often than not we would go to a bar after work and have a beer or two, and maybe shoot a couple games of pool.  Sometimes, we'd splurge for dinner at the bar also. So it wasn't enough that Andrew mooched from us at the motel; he insisted on coming out with us after work too.  And it's not like we were gonna say, "No, Andrew.  You may not come out with us."  When it's just five of you on the road together, you can't afford to alienate anyone.  Plus, we were Canadians.  You know, like Americans, only nicer. But we didn't have to like it. Mitch had said something to him uncharacteristically diplomatic and delicate (two adjectives not generally associated with Mitch).  Something like "You know Andrew, you're...

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...

Poor Mitch Clinton. His trip with us to Port Alberni and Courtenay on Vancouver Island was neither enjoyable not profitable. We had just had a rare few days off at home in Vancouver between road trips.  I killed time by doing semi-independent and totally useless door knocking in town.  Big cities like Vancouver were ruined for door to door encyclopedia salesmen long before I ever got into it.  City folk are hostile and suspicious, go figure. The day before our upcoming Island Adventure we all met up at the office for our periodical meeting/pep talk/cult ceremony.  Uncharacteristically, Mitch stayed in the background, but I didn't give it much thought.  We went out for lunch together, and I noticed he was hiccuping.  And that he was miserable. Turns out he had had the hiccups since we had gotten back from our last road trip a few days earlier.  If not for my childhood obsession with and constant reading of the 1981 Guinness Book of World Record...

I thought I'd share with you a little about what day to day life on the road was like for us as a travelling door to door encyclopedia sales crew. As I've indicated, one guy (usually Mitch Clinton in our case) would be the crew leader, and he would be responsible for the car and all associated expenses.   Normally, five of us would pile into his Volkswagen Jetta and we would drive off from our home base in Vancouver to wherever we were going, typically a thousand kilometers or so, into the boonies of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Since we shared accommodation expenses equally, it was in our interest to find the cheapest fleabag motel in whatever town we were staying at, and let me tell you we stayed in some nasty ones.  When there's a broken window and a draft under the door and the temperatures outside are in the double digits below freezing, you know you're not at the Hilton. There was one model of motel room that was the o...

Disclaimer:  as before . So, there we were in frozen Grande Prairie , Alberta.  It's minus 45 and not a whole lot to do after a day freezing out butts off knocking on doors.  The stoner in our crew, Andy Bailey, had inexplicably neglected to bring any weed on the road this time, and he was really regretting it (and we could certainly have used the entertainment too).  "Let's go score some weed," he said. "I thought you've never been here before," I replied.  Let me point out to you again what a relative innocent I was.  I had been a pretty straight-laced teenager until very recently, and the idea of trying to find a source of illegal recreational drugs in a strange city seemed about as realistic to me as panning for gold, only more dangerous.  Not to mention crazy.  OK, let's mention it.  "Andy, are you crazy?  Where are you gonna find weed in Grande Prairie?" "I noticed a strip bar when we were driving into town.  Let's go t...