Andy Scores a Bag of Weed

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 there."

"To look at strippers?"

"No!  To score some weed, dumbass!  For sure someone there'll have some."

"Andy."  I tried my best to be the voice of reason.  The voice of maturity.  The voice of sanity.  "We can't just go to some strip bar in a town where we don't know anyone and walk up to some total stranger and ask to buy weed!"

"Sure we can.  Let's go."  Andy started pulling on his parka.  Seeing me hesitate, he said in exasperation, "Oh, come on!  Just come with me.  I'll do everything; you just be there.  You can sit and watch the show," he added with a smile.

I followed him out the door in a haze of horror and confusion about the spiralling chaos my until recently well ordered life was rapidly becoming.  We left behind at the motel room Mitch and the rest of the crew watching TV and laughing at my discomfort at having been drafted as Andy's wingman for the expedition.

We drove to the strip bar, parked, and went in.  Now, as a hormone-filled 21-year-old, this was not necessarily an undesirable (or, for that matter, unheard of) place for me to be, but given my shy and innocent nature, being there with a friend and coworker was a bit awkward.  Nevertheless, I played it cool.  Andy told me to sit down while he went to look for a likely mark to make his purchase.

So I sat down.  My heart was beating in my throat, both at the sight of the . . . um . . . naked . . . heh, heh . . . ladies on stage, as well as the knowledge of the illicit business that brought me there that night.  If only my parents could see me now, I thought.  From university to trolling for pot at a strip bar a thousand kilometres from home in no time at all!  This is quite a life I've scratched out for myself.

I had hardly had a chance to think these thoughts when Andy came back to the table and said, "Come on.  Let's go."

"Huh?"  I could be pretty articulate at times.

"We're good.  Let's go."

"What?  You got weed?"  The last word was barely whispered.  "Already?"

"Yes," Andy slipped into his slow 'I'm-talking-to-a-retard' cadence.  "Let's go back to the motel room and smoke it!"

"Oh.  Uh.  Okay."

Nossir, never a dull moment with Andy Bailey around.

Double or Nothing

I've liked backgammon since I was a kid, but never thought much of it until a book about backgammon theory found its way into my hands and opened my eyes to the depths of strategy and thought contained in that deceptively simple game.  One day on the road, I mentioned this to Andy Bailey, and he said, "Dude!  I love backgammon!  You should totally get a set next time we're in town and we'll totally play all the time on the next road trip!  Wanna make it interesting?  We can play for a quarter a game!"

I had never gambled on backgammon (or anything else as far as I can remember), but a quarter a game seemed pretty harmless, and I did want to test the book's theory about the strategic effects of the doubling cube on multi-game series, and a stake was the best way to do it, so I agreed.

The next time we were in Vancouver, I went to my favourite game geek store in Gastown and picked up, for 20 bucks, the set that I use to this day.  Not a cheap-o magnetic travel set, it's a genuine (well, synthetic) felt board and stone pieces, but light and compact.  Let the games begin.

Andy, Andy.  So excitable, so impulsive.  Poor guy couldn't say "no" to a double, or, after a lucky roll or two, keep his fingers off the doubling cube himself.  So you see (if you know anything about the game) that a measly 25 cents a game can easily turn into two dollars with the doubling cube on 8, were it usually ended up.   Sometimes it would get to 16, and finally on one very memorable occasion, all the way to 64, when a single game almost paid off my investment.  We played almost every night after work and every Sunday on the road from then on, and his tab just kept growing and growing.

Not that Andy was a bad player, mind you.  Just reckless.  I didn't mind taking his money, since he was obviously having such a good time.  In fact, of all the guys (and gal) I worked with back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, Andy Bailey was the most fun.  Fun was Andy's middle name.  Oh, the stories I could tell (and hopefully will).  His choice of songs for karaoke night at a redneck bar.  Scoring a bag of weed at . . . oh, I think I'll just leave you hanging for now.

All told, I made about $80 over the course of a month or so.  Not what one would call riches, but it certainly came in handy back then considering I wasn't exactly selling hundreds of encyclopedia sets.

Frozen Grande Prairie

One time, back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, we went to Grande Prairie, Alberta.  It was cold.

Grande Prairie, at around 40 thousand people, was one of the biggest cities we worked in my 6 months of purgatory.  We stayed there for a whole week in February of 1994, and I'll probably have a few tales to tell in future posts from just that week alone.

But mostly, it was cold.

Indeed, it's the coldest I've ever been.  One morning it got down to -47 Celsius (-53 Fahrenheit), but the first few nights we worked it was merely -45 (-49F) until it started warming up.  Folks, until you're outside knocking on strangers' doors in -45 degrees, you don't know what a tough day at work is.  I remember how different the physical world is at those temperatures.  When I would breathe in, the inside of my nose would instantly freeze, and when I exhaled, it would instantly thaw.  Ten times a minute.  And my coat sounded different.  In minus 45, it sounded like it was made from crinkly cellophane as I swung my arms while walking.

Unfortunately, I was less that ideally prepared for such weather.  I did have a really great warm parka with a hood, and decent gloves, so above the waist I was OK.  However, I didn't have long johns under my jeans and, worst of all, I had cheap non-winter hiking boots on my feet.  This was not good.

After about 15 minutes outside, I couldn't feel my toes any more.  After a few more minutes, I couldn't feel my heels either.  At that point, I would always say to the people behind the next door I knocked on, "Hi!  I'm an encyclopedia salesman.  I promise I won't try to sell you anything if you let me in to warm up."  And would you believe it, they always did!  I never once got turned down, and would usually be offered hot cocoa to boot.

But the best was one time, as I was just getting warm and toasty, the man of the house said to me, "Well, as long as you're here, why don't you try your pitch on us?"  I was always serious about not trying to sell to folks letting me in to warm up, but I wasn't going to insult this kind gentleman by refusing him.

It was one of the most satisfying sales I ever made.

What Have I Become? -- or -- Where's the Rest of Me?

I certainly never meant to be a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman.  I was looking through the job ads, and there was something about educational products, and I called for an interview.  I met with Richard, a 50-something gentleman, articulate and impeccably dressed.  He immigrated from Jamaica as a teenager, dirt broke, and had climbed to his current position of relative power all by himself.  I can only imagine how many encyclopedias he had sold, and he certainly sold me this job without my even realising it.  Of course, almost everything he told me was a flat out lie.  No travel ("Well, after training, we like the new trainees to go out with the crew leader for a week or ten days, to get away from distractions, you know"), no cold calling (lie!), and any number of other falsehoods and misdirections.

But by the time we had invested a week or more in training, gone on our first road trip (Three frigging weeks in Saskatchewan and Alberta!  How's that for a "week or ten days" for you?) and had our first tantalizing brushes with success, there were those of us who put the lies behind us and tried to make the best of it.  About three quarters quit within a couple weeks, but those who stayed, stayed.

After my second road trip, I found myself at home for a few days.  A longer break than usual, it gave me time to reflect a little.  I was starting to get a nagging little voice in the back of my head saying that something was not quite right.  That this wasn't exactly what I was supposed to be doing.  Too bad the voice didn't speak English.  Or maybe it just wasn't speaking loudly enough.

My old school buddy Chris was having a birthday party.  I hardly knew anyone there, and I found myself talking to I nice fellow who, understandably, asked me what I did for a living.  I, however, was at a loss for an answer. I hadn't really thought about it, and didn't have an answer prepared.  I paused to think about what had brought me to this moment.  Straight A's in high school, my pick of universities, a planned career as a veterinarian, then getting my lazy butt kicked out of university, the newspaper job ads, and now . . . what?

"I'm a  . . ."

What?  I put it together in my mind for the first time as I said it to Chris' friend at the birthday party.

"I'm a travelling . . .

. . . door-to-door . . .

. . . encyclopedia salesman."

Chris' friend looked at me kinda bemused, I guess wondering if I was having him on or not.  Apparently satisfied that I was serious, conversation moved on to other topics.  I wonder if he even noticed my pause, since it seemed to me like a lifetime's worth of thoughts went into it.  It might have been half a second; it might have been ten.  But my view of myself was forever altered.

The next day we had a big meeting for work in the head office.  Periodically we did this if a couple of crews found themselves in town at the same time.  It was an opportunity to schmooze, discuss concerns, share ideas for improving our pitches, etc.

Ladies and joims, I had a concern to share with the group.  It wasn't exactly Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but it was my life.  "This job isn't what we were promised.  I never expected to be on the road all the time, and it wasn't supposed to be cold calling and knocking on random doors all the time, and it wasn't supposed to be all about encyclopedias.  Yesterday, someone asked me what I did for a living, and you know what I had to tell him?  I told him I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman!"

The other newbies looked at me like I had just brought the Ten Commandments down from Sinai, and looked silently and accusingly at the bosses.  The bosses, especially Richard, looked at me, nodding sympathetically, as though they realised it had just been a matter of time before someone said it.

The next day, we were back on the road.

The Ferry Ride

I realised as I was writing the last story that just getting to Courtenay was half the excitement.  Well, not really, but it is a story.  You remember John Schlesinger, my boss, the cheapskate from a previous post.  Well, he came with us on the road this time too, so it was his Volkswagen Jetta we took.  As I believe I've mentioned before, the deal (if you can call it that) is that the driver pays all the transportation costs in exchange for a cut of the crew's commissions.  Everything else is on us; we split the cost of the motel, pay for our own food, etc.

As you may have figured out, since Courtenay is on Vancouver Island, simply driving there is not so simple.  In fact, it is a two hour ferry ride from Vancouver (actually the major metropolis of Tsawwassen) to Nanaimo on the Island.  So as we drove up to the ferry terminal, John, with an air of insouciant nonchalance 

(quick, keep writing before the smart pill runs out)

asked for everyone to chip in for the ferry ride.

Ladies and gentlemen, I lost it.

I've always been a pretty easygoing guy, tending to avoid conflict.  Go along to get along, you know.  But my frustration and exasperation with my company's BS had been simmering and stewing for months, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back.  (Don't like my mixed metaphors?  If it's good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for me.)   This job was, to say the least, not what they had told us it was going to be -- remind me to tell you that story some time -- but I was stuck with it for the time being, and wanted to make it work.  But the resentment was growing, and it exploded when John asked for ferry money.

"No," I said.

"What do you mean no?  Pay up!"

"No!  I'm not paying for the f***ing ferry!  Transportation is supposed to be on you!"

"That's gas and maintenance for the car.  I'm not paying for you to take the ferry.  If you don't like it, you can take the bus home, and you'll be paying for that too."

"JOHN!  GET THIS THROUGH YOUR F***ING HEAD!  I'M NOT PAYING!  The transportation is on you!  That's the f***ing deal!  If you don't wanna pay for my f***ing ferry ride, then YOU WILL PAY FOR MY F***ING BUS RIDE HOME!"

I was in such a haze of fury, I can't even remember what the reaction of the other crew-mates was.  It might as well have just been John and me in the car.  John's reaction, however, was unexpected.  He laughed, and decided that he liked my resolve and initiative.  He paid for the ferry, and the incident passed.  I had earned John Schlesinger's respect.

Not that it was worth anything.

Reefer Madness

Disclaimer:  As I've mentioned before, not everything on this blog is exactly child-friendly.  Be warned.  Furthermore, I am in no way condoning and certainly not encouraging anybody to smoke pot.  That being said, I was a 21 year old university dropout at the time and . . . oh, what the heck, there are gonna be some pot stories on this blog, and here's the first one:

I'd venture a guess that if I were to ask a hundred people how much pot they think gets smoked on the road by travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen, as many would be shocked that it happens at all as would be shocked that it's not ubiquitous.  I'd say that of the dozen or so road trips I went on in my six months, there was weed on about half of them.  It mostly depended on the crew members of a given trip.  Some would be opposed, in which case nobody did any, some were cool with it, and then there were the potheads.

Like Andy Bailey.

Bet let's talk about Andy and his weed another time.  Today I'd like to tell you about Courtenay.  Courtenay isn't a person; it's a city on Vancouver Island where I went one time back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman.

I'd been on the job for a couple of months, and had smoked up with some of my crew mates two or three times by that point, as well as a total of two times in my two years of University before that.  That is to say, I was by no means a stoner, so when Andy Bailey said we were entering one of the "weed capitals" of Canada, I wasn't sure what that could mean.  To me, back in those innocent days, the idea of people nonchalantly and fearlessly smoking up with strangers was something out of a Cheech and Chong movie, not reality.

So there I was, knocking on doors in Courtenay, and as happens (not nearly often enough to make my time in the sales cult lucrative)  I got into the home of a young couple whose baby was sleeping upstairs.  I found them to be the perfect

(suckers)

customers: they were receptive to my pitch, not too poor, not too rich.  And it's a fairly long and involved pitch at that -- at least an hour, as much as two, to get a $2100 commitment at the end.  By about the half hour mark, I was feeling quite good about it, just rolling along, so to speak, when all of a sudden the husband pulled out a bag of weed and started rolling a joint right in front of me without saying a word, continuing to pay attention to my pitch, as though he were just taking a sip of coffee.

I was well and truly flabbergasted.  Nothing in my life had prepared me for this moment.  I made the conscious decision to pretend I didn't notice what he was doing (which was about as realistic as not noticing him throwing pebbles at my face) and continued my pitch, while trying to project onto him some sort of mental force field: "Don't spark it up!  Don't spark it up!"

Of course, it's not that I didn't like weed myself, or that my moral sensibilities were being compromised in some way.  (I can hear you laughing.  "Moral sensibilities?  From a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman?"  Hardee har har.)  It's just that I was trying to make a living, that is to say trying to make a sale, and I couldn't imagine a couple of stoned customers deciding to make the commitment at the end.  So was I ever relieved when, after he had finished rolling the doobie, he set it down on the table beside him.

And there it stayed for about 5 minutes until, with the same nonchalance as when he rolled it, he picked it up and lit it.  He took a couple of puffs and passed it to his wife, who did the same.  All this time, my mind was racing (continuing to calmly pitch my "home educational library" all along) thinking to myself, "What are you gonna do if they pass it to you?  What are you gonna do if they pass it to you?"

Of course she passed it to me.  What kind of host would she be otherwise?

It was decision time.  They didn't cover this situation in training.

I took a big puff, and passed it back to the husband.  The

(elephant in the room)

joint made its rounds 2 or 3 times, never mentioned, almost invisible, as I continued pitching the product, and the couple kept nodding in all the right places.  But hoo-ee, was I ever stoned!  I felt I was floating somewhere near the ceiling as I pulled out poster after poster ("Now how much would you pay?  Wait!  Don't answer yet!  Just look what else you get!") working my way to the close.

Finally, I got to the end, which was almost anti-climactic.  When I asked for the sale, they agreed as though they had just been waiting for me to ask.  They signed on the dotted line, and I walked back to the motel room with a buzz, the happy expectation of a payday, and one hell of a story.

A Jew in St. Walburg

One time, back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, I went to St. Walburg, a town of about 650 people in northern Saskatchewan.

Now, let me preface this by saying that I'm Jewish, but 16 years ago, when I was selling encyclopedias, I wasn't that Jewish, if you know what I mean.  I might have gone to synagogue once or twice a year, did something or other Jewish on some of the major holidays, but not much more than that.  But I certainly felt Jewish, and one Jewish thing I did every single day was to wear a silver Star of David necklace, and had been doing so for years.

But I'm no idiot.  When out in the rural areas of BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan (not a lot of Jews out there), I kept the Star of David under my shirt.  Until, that is, I walked up to a door in St. Walburg and saw a mezuzah.

I must have stood there staring at it for a whole minute.  I hadn't seen the slightest hint of a Jewish presence in my 5 months (at that point) of encyclopedia sales in any town smaller than 200 thousand, much less 650 people.  My curiosity was almost palpable.  I had to know: what were Jews doing here?  And not just Jews, but Jews with a mezuzah, of all things, on their door!

Well, out came my Star of David, and I knocked on the door.  A kindly elderly gentleman came to the door.  I felt a small tinge of disappointment, since I wasn't going to make a sale that day.  (Our encyclopedia package was geared towards families with small kids.  More about that in a future post.)  But nevertheless, I had to satify my Jewish curiosity about these people.

So I got myself invited in, and the man's equally elderly wife made me some cocoa, and we all sat down to chat.  I didn't really know how to bring up my main question, so we just shot the breeze for a few minutes.  I was, however, getting the firm impression that they didn't exactly seem Jewish to me.  Finally, after all my pathetic attempts at steering the conversation towards Judaism failed, I just came out and said, "Pardon me for asking, but are you folks Jewish by any chance?"

"No," they said.  "Why do you ask?"

Why do I ask?  Why do they think??  "Well, you know that thing you have nailed to your doorpost?  With the Hebrew writing on it?  It's called a mezuzah, and it's usually just Jewish homes that have them."

"Oh, that!"  Yes, that.  "Well, our daughter was visiting the 'holy land' a few years ago, and someone sold it to her.  They said it was a good luck charm, and that we should put in on our doorpost."

Well, that's when I realised that the Jew in St. Walburg was just me after all.