Scraping the Bong

Note: This is more or less a sequel to Prince George was Smokin'. The same disclaimer applies.

So there we were in Prince George and we'd finished Ms. Crewcut's swaggy weed. No need to worry however; Andy Bailey came prepared too. Not only did he bring a little bit of weed also, but he also packed one of the most unique and ingenious pieces of smoking paraphernalia I've ever seen.

It began its existence as a large plastic travel mug with a tight fitting snap lid, the simple kind without any sliding closure or anything. The lid of course had two holes in it: one for drinking out of, and a smaller one to let air in. Into the drinking hole he had fitted the shell of a disposable plastic pen that he had heated and softened in order to make it fit snugly, as well as to bend it to a convenient angle for sucking without tipping the mug or straining the neck. He completed the seal with plasticine.

To the bottom of the smaller hole he attached a similar pen tube so that it went down almost to the bottom of the mug. The truly brilliant idea was how he created a bowl to attach to the top of that hole. He bought a springy metal door stopper. He removed the rubber tip, then held the narrow end of the spring over a flame until it was hot enough to melt plastic. He then screwed it into the lid directly above the small hole and held it there until it cooled and the plastic hardened. He was then able to screw and unscrew the door stopper from the lid at will. He inserted a piece of wire screen into the top. You put your weed there.

Voila: a perfectly functional unbreakable bong that collapses in about fifteen seconds into what looks like a normal and inconspicuous travel mug. "Andy, if only you could use your powers for good and not for evil," I said. Andy laughed.

Now kind reader, as I'm sure you know, after one has smoked any kind of pipe enough times, deposits of resin start to build up on its inner surfaces. We were all out of weed, so Ms. Crewcut decided it was time to scrape Andy's bong.  I and a couple other folks went along with this bold idea, even though Andy was out knocking on doors and trying to sell encyclopedias. I'm sure I must have had a fleeting thought that it wasn't very nice what we were doing, but I guess I made peace with myself. After all, it wasn't my idea.

So the bong got scraped and the resulting powder got smoked (along with whatever healthy supplements got picked up from the plastic mug or the chrome-plated door stopper), and a good time was had by all. Until Andy returned, that is. Andy Bailey was not pleased with Ms. Crewcut's initiative. In fact, one might say he totally lost it. After a few minutes of yelling and screaming and berating a very carefree, cool, and collected (ie. stoned) Ms. Crewcut, he made the point that  think was the one that loomed largest in his mind. "Do you have any idea how many bowls I had to smoke through that bong to get so much resin to build up?!"

I decided it was my opportunity to pipe in (so to speak) and defuse the situation. Thankfully it worked. Andy laughed, and peace did once again dwell among fellow travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen.

"That was quite a sacrifice, Andy."

Update: Holy smokes! (So to speak.) When I wrote this post I was unaware of a movie called The Cabin in the Woods. But I see that a lot of you are, and I have come to understand that a travel mug bong is featured quite prominently in that movie. Apparently, it's quite different from mine (that is, Andy's), but I'm still a little touched and flattered that so many of you have visited my humble little blog based on it. Thank you, and feel free to stay and read a few stories!

Selling to Indians - Part II

. . . Continued from Part I

My bosses, crew leaders, and more experienced crew mates always said that Indians (not the kind from India) were in a special category for travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen. The whole idea of profiling in that way made me rather uneasy, not to mention skeptical, but eventually I got to experience the reality face to face.

So there we were in 100 Mile House, British Columbia. I was knocking on doors, and an Indian fellow in his late 50s or so came to the door. He lived alone. I wasn't sure exactly what to do. On one hand, our whole package and pitch was geared towards younger families with small kids, but on the other hand he was an Indian, which is virtually an automatic sale, especially if he owns his own home. I was leaning towards excusing myself, but he pretty much made me come in and show him the product. He said he had grandkids and was interested in getting something for them. Folks, if the customer tells you at the door that he's interested, this is very very good news. It kinda eliminates the whole process from "why are you knocking on my door" to "well, yes I guess I can see why this would be a valuable addition to my home".

My entire interaction with him was totally unlike any other customer. In a different (non-Indian) context I would have concluded that he was utterly indifferent to my pitch and to the sales points I was making, but in this case I think he had already decided he was going to buy whatever I was selling, and didn't have any questions or concerns, and didn't want to waste time. It was only his innate respectfulness that kept him from asking me to cut to the chase. Every time I'd ask a question ("Do you think that having quality educational products in the home is critical in giving your child the best chance possible for success?") he would simply answer, "Yes" and wait for me to continue.

So of course in the end he bought it. As I was filling out the order form with him, one of the questions I had to ask him was who his employer was. He named a major local logging company. I asked him what his position was there. Please remember that I was a 21-year-old city boy and a former university student with no clue and little respect for rural and uneducated ways (I've learned since), so when he answered "pine cone picker," I could hardly grasp what he was saying. I asked him what that involved. "When the loggers remove the trees, I go over the cleared ground and pick up the pine cones." Idiot that I was, I actually had to hold myself back from laughing at him. Of course, he was making a living and I wasn't, so who deserves to be laughed at?

Then there are the other Indians. You know, the kind that actually come from India. The first time I ever knocked on a Punjabi Sikh's door I had not yet been told by the travelling door to door encyclopedia sages that Indians are the polar opposite of Indians. One politely says, "Oh, sorry, wrong door" and moves on, because Indians never ever buy.

There I was in Prince George, BC, and expecting to have a wasted night, having been stuck in one of the better neighbourhoods there. All nice big well-kept houses. The Sahara desert would be a more hospitable place for a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman. A man wearing a turban came to the door, and after I introduced myself, he invited me in. So far so good, but then he made me break one of the cardinal rules that was drummed into us during training: NEVER talk to just one spouse without the other. If necessary, make an appointment to come back, or else excuse yourself, but don't waste time on just one half. No matter what they say at the beginning, in the end it will always be, "Oh, I have to ask my wife/husband". Always. So just don't bother.

Well Mr. Chadha was having none of it. When I asked him if his wife was home, he considered my question impertinent. "You can show me what you have to show me, and I'll decide if we need it or not." I tried again to get him to agree to have his wife join us (I could see her busy in the kitchen, and my trainers were really clear about not trying to pitch half a couple) and he started to get a little annoyed and short with me. "She does not need to be here. I make the decisions, OK?" This was not boding well, neither with his cross attitude, nor with my breaking the rules, but since I had no other prospects that night, I just charged forward with my pitch.

When I got to the end, he was silent for a moment, then said, "Yes, that sounds fine". Unbelievable.

When I got back to the motel that night, I knew it would be a funny and impressive story; I just didn't know how impressive. I told the crew "I made a sale to an Indian tonight!"

"Big deal," answered Mitch. "Who can't?"

"Wanna know his name?"

"Sure."

"Surinder Singh Chadha."

"WHAT?? An Indian Indian? That's impossible! They never buy!"

In my six months as a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, it was the only time I ever truly impressed and astonished all my superiors with a truly great sale. The warm glow of pride must have lasted . . . hours.

Selling to Indians - Part I

Being a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman does not lend itself to political correctness. Unofficially and off the record, our bosses and crew leaders drilled into us the correct profiles of people likely to buy, and of those we shouldn't waste our time with. And a waste of time it was, since if you did a good job of getting in the door (which is a really big part of getting the sale) and spent a good hour or two on the schmooze and the pitch only to get turned down, you've wasted a good part of the night. Ditto if you waste hours knocking on doors in a neighbourhood where nobody will talk to you.

So there were two general demographic profiles that we would focus on in our sales: rednecks and Indians. Today let's discuss the latter.

(Natives, Native Canadians, First Nations. The politically correct term changes from time to time, but the ones I met were happy to call themselves Indians, so I will too. While I don't go too far out of my way to be super-sensitive, it is also not my intention to be wantonly offensive, so I hope you understand my words in the spirit in which they are meant.)

Indians can either live on a reservation, or in a town or city along with white people. Reservations (as far as I could tell, and on the testimony of fellow salesmen) come in two general categories: ones that are obviously poverty-stricken, and ones with a brand new pickup in every driveway. I'm not sure what determines that, but my guess would be the exploitation of some sort of valuable natural resource, such as oil or timber.

As for why Indians are so open to travelling salesmen, I'd be surprised if any research had been done on the topic, but I can give a few educated guesses. First, a characteristic that they share with rednecks is that they are generally located relatively far from major urban centres and their accompanying wealth of choices in retail establishments, as well as libraries. Remember, this was before the days of the internet.

Aside from that, I'm sure there were cultural aspects, such as a general desire for self-improvement and a chance for a better education for the kids, for which an encyclopedia was a powerful symbol and, potentially, a useful tool.

Whatever the reasons, very often if you knocked on an Indian family's door, they would act like they were lucky to invite you in, listen spellbound to the pitch, and then sign the sales contract and credit application gratefully at the end. Too easy.

Only two problems: one, they actually had to pass a credit check and two, you don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, so we were careful about not overworking the reservations. In fact, a night of knocking on doors on a reservation was used as a reward to be teased with for a particularly hard or motivated worker. There was no bigger carrot. As for the credit check (and, more generally, being able to afford the product at all), that's why we looked for the brand new pickup in every driveway. That's the right kind of reservation for a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman.

Sometimes, of course, one would simply get lucky and find an Indian family living among the rednecks. That's what happened to me in 100 Mile House, British Columbia. The first time Mitch told me we were driving there, I had to ask him if this was the real name of a town, or if it was some kind of inside joke. No joke: 100 Mile House is a real honest-to-goodness town. They even have a McDonald's.

(To be continued . . .)

Travelling Door to Door Diversity Training

It never ceased to amaze me the different kinds of folks who would find themselves knocking on strangers' doors to try to somehow get invited inside to pitch a set of encyclopedias. If you're imagining there's some sort of background or personality type that would correlate with such a career choice, you are wrong. If you're a faithful reader of this blog, you've already met Mitch, Andy, Andrew, Ann, John, Richard, Ray, Gloria, and others. Believe me, in my six months in the trenches of travelling door to door encyclopedia sales, there were many more, and they were all so different.

I guess most were from middle class families, but of course Richard had been a penniless Jamaican immigrant. The only generalization that is somewhat accurate is that about 80% of salesmen were men. But other than that, the lovely rainbow of Vancouver's diverse city was pretty much covered. Chinese, Jewish, evangelical Christian, angry feminist, long-haired rock musician, redneck, ex-soldier, pothead, high school dropout, college dropout, college graduate, Swedish immigrant, Jamaican immigrant, Bahamian immigrant from England (Jackie. She was so cute and perky!), an Indian (from Punjab) and an Indian (from a North Vancouver reservation).

Now that I mention it, remind me to tell you about the Indian and the Indian some day. What a couple of characters.

But as diverse as the sales crews were, I must admit that our customers were not quite so cosmopolitan. In fact, the vast majority of sales occurred in just two general demographic sets: rednecks and Indians.

By rednecks I mean white people lower-middle to middle-middle class living far from major urban areas, preferably in trailer parks. The trailer park angle is one worth exploring in a separate post.  And as for Indians, you can look forward to a post called "Selling to Indians" coming soon to a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman blog near you!

Let's Meet Another Crew!

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!

Prince George was Smokin'

Disclaimer: as before.

One time, back in the days when I was a travelling door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, we went to Prince George, British Columbia.  Good thing somebody brought weed.

Prince George is an old logging town that grew into a small city, and occupied that perfect middle ground where it lacked both the excitement of Vancouver (and other cities) and the charm of all the little towns and villages where we did most of our work.  We were there for a week or so.

It was only my second or third road trip, so I was still just getting the hang of it, and I was still basically a pretty innocent kid.  In my two years of University before taking this job, I had smoked weed a total of two times, and had never really gotten stoned ("got stoned" for the British readers of this blog).

As luck would have it, a one-tripper that I remember almost nothing about except that she looked like a sitcom lesbian and brought a baggie of twiggy swag.  Betcha didn't know how many different kinds of people end up as travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen for at least a road trip or two.

Our first night at the Prince George motel, Ms. Crewcut pulled out her baggie and rolled a big fat doobie.  We passed it around and I enjoyed it, but once again wondered if there was something I was missing.  After a little while, I was felling a little hungry, so I decided to go to the gas station down the road to get a little snack.  It's when I got down to the street that I realised just how profoundly stoned I was.  I couldn't wait to get back to the motel room to share the good news, but of course I really had to get that snack.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, snack!  Where was I going again?  Ooh, look at the pretty sky!  Needless to say, it took some time before I made it back to the motel room with a full belly and ready to boast to all who would hear about just how stoned I was.  My crewmates shook their heads at my puppy dog naivete.

By the end of our week in Prince George, I was an old hand at that whole weed-smoking thing.  Just wait till I tell you about how we moved on to Andy Bailey's bong.

Guilty Pleasure

One time back in the days when I was a travelling door to door encyclopedia salesman, we went to Kamloops, British Columbia.  In fact, many times.

Kamloops is about a 4 hour drive from Vancouver on the way to most of the places we would go in Alberta and Saskatchewan, so it was often a convenient place to stop to eat, and more often than not do an evening's worth of door knocking while we were at it.  I remember it as a kind of unexciting working class town, which made it a perfect place for travelling door to door encyclopedia salesmen to ply their trade.  Its population of not much less than 100 thousand would generally work against it (cities hate door to door salesmen), but its isolation in fact meant that au contraire, it could simply be worked over and over without killing territory.

One of the things I remember best about Kamloops is how many really old cars one would see on the road.  Neither collectible antiques suggesting a wealthy area nor nasty old junkers suggesting a slum, but simply old cars in decent shape that in most of the places I'd been would have rusted to dust years earlier.  Lots of AMC Eagles and such.  I was told it was because Kamloops gets very little rain or snow because it's in the Coastal Mountains' rain shadow, and they don't salt the roads in the winter.  Certainly when I was there in April, it was hot and dry and seemed like a desert.  It was fun to see all those classic middle class cars on the road.

One time, we were driving through a residential neighbourhood when I saw a hand painted sign in someone's front yard that made me laugh until I cried, while at the same time feeling like a lowlife for finding it so funny.  I just saw it out of the corner of my eye for a moment, but that was all it took to burn itself into my memory forever.  I guess it was the pathos, the innocence, or maybe the passive-aggressiveness (a term I had never heard yet back in those days) of the sign that struck me as so funny.  Probably the pathos.  Whenever anyone mentions "guilty pleasures," I think of my laughter at that sad little hand painted sign somebody took the effort to create and put on their front lawn in Kamloops, BC.

Please return our boat.