You Have GOT To Be Kidding
So I'm in my upstairs office working (or, rather, procrastinating from
work via the Internet) when I hear a knock at the front door. I figure it's
either a delivery guy, since we're expecting a few packages in addition
to a few we've already received, or perhaps our next-door neighbor, who's been
gifting us his surplus garden produce lately.
I go downstairs, open the front door and see nobody, so I open the screen door and take a half-step out, looking for either a package left in the shrubbery or my neighbor walking back to his place. I see neither, but do see a guy in a polo shirt, with a shaved head and tattoos on his arm, in the process of walking toward his parked car, when he turned around and saw me.
Of course I'm not going to stand there with the screen door open, letting in bugs and heat and humidity while I've got the air conditioner running to fight them, so I stepped back into the house and shut the screen door. The door has no pneumatic arm, so I had to actually hold the handle as the door shut, so it wouldn't slam, then turned the lock/latch from force of habit. The guy, meanwhile, started saying he was from [Name deleted because screw free publicity] Meats, and when he saw me step back and close and latch the screen door, all in more-or-less a single movement (almost automatic by now because I've already done it a hundred times this past month), he apparently decided I was being defensive, so he said "Whoa, sweetheart, I'm not going to...."
Sweetheart.
Sweetheart?
My eyebrows went up a bit, and I said, "We haven't ordered any meats."
"I know. I just--"
"We're not going to order any meats." Front door shut. End of conversation.
Even though I live in the northernest and most Yankeefied part of northern Virginia -- if I fart, they're more likely to smell it in Maryland than anywhere in the old Confederacy -- based on my month-and-change here and a couple minor experiences thus far, I'm thinking there may yet still be something to the stereotype of how a lot of southern men -- especially the less-educated ones -- have some bullshit attitudes toward women.
Also, this is the second guy who's come door-to-door claiming to be from a meat company. I'm pretty sure he's talking about non-sexual, non-male-prostitute, actual dietary meat, but I'm still not used to door-to-door food sales unless it's Girl Scouts peddling cookies. The Girl Scouts are young, immature and clueless in multiple ways, but even they know better than to call a would-be customer "sweetheart."
I go downstairs, open the front door and see nobody, so I open the screen door and take a half-step out, looking for either a package left in the shrubbery or my neighbor walking back to his place. I see neither, but do see a guy in a polo shirt, with a shaved head and tattoos on his arm, in the process of walking toward his parked car, when he turned around and saw me.
Of course I'm not going to stand there with the screen door open, letting in bugs and heat and humidity while I've got the air conditioner running to fight them, so I stepped back into the house and shut the screen door. The door has no pneumatic arm, so I had to actually hold the handle as the door shut, so it wouldn't slam, then turned the lock/latch from force of habit. The guy, meanwhile, started saying he was from [Name deleted because screw free publicity] Meats, and when he saw me step back and close and latch the screen door, all in more-or-less a single movement (almost automatic by now because I've already done it a hundred times this past month), he apparently decided I was being defensive, so he said "Whoa, sweetheart, I'm not going to...."
Sweetheart.
Sweetheart?
My eyebrows went up a bit, and I said, "We haven't ordered any meats."
"I know. I just--"
"We're not going to order any meats." Front door shut. End of conversation.
Even though I live in the northernest and most Yankeefied part of northern Virginia -- if I fart, they're more likely to smell it in Maryland than anywhere in the old Confederacy -- based on my month-and-change here and a couple minor experiences thus far, I'm thinking there may yet still be something to the stereotype of how a lot of southern men -- especially the less-educated ones -- have some bullshit attitudes toward women.
Also, this is the second guy who's come door-to-door claiming to be from a meat company. I'm pretty sure he's talking about non-sexual, non-male-prostitute, actual dietary meat, but I'm still not used to door-to-door food sales unless it's Girl Scouts peddling cookies. The Girl Scouts are young, immature and clueless in multiple ways, but even they know better than to call a would-be customer "sweetheart."
posted by Jennifer Abel at 12:43 PM
5 Comments:
I'm thinking there may yet still be something to the stereotype of how a lot of southern men -- especially the less-educated ones -- have some bullshit attitudes toward women.
Aw now, sweet thang, you all just hasn't - whatcha call it - re-aclimated yet. "Sweetheart" can't be any worse than "Mama" or "Babe" and I've heard both come out of the mouths of Northerners. At least he didn't call you Sugar Britches. ;-)
BTW, I wouldn't buy any meat peddled door to door like that, if I were you. It's generally poor quality, low-grade stuff that's been injected with artificial flavorings, etc. to make it smell better while cooking and to tenderize it. It's passed off as high-grade cuts and sold at a "bargain price," but in reality you are paying more than what an equal grade would cost you in a store. Plus, alot of times they'll try to sell you a damn deep freeze to go with it. But I guess those ex-cons gotta have some kind of work to do, if they're to "go straight."
My mother was car shopping a while back, and had settled on a Toyota Rav 4. She located the vehicle she wanted, waived over a salesman, and told him she'd take it. He said, "Ok, ma'am. Have a seat here and we'll make sure your husband is ok with the car". Her Circle of Willis just about burst like a caterpillar in a microwave, and that dumbasstuous hick lost out on a $30K sale.
Smartass --
Oh, no fear; with the exception of Girl Scout cookies and related kid stuff, I never buy anything offered by an uninvited door-to-door salesperson.
Robert --
I haven't had that experience, but I'm guessing it's because I haven't tried buying a car here yet. But when I had mine inspected a couple weeks ago, the guy who'd just inspected my car said he couldn't give me a repair estimate because "he'd have to look at it." Even though he just freaking did, to figure out that faulty part failed the inspection. So some other mechanic pocketed the $800 repair cost, not him.
Seriously, though; even assuming I were the type of person to buy meat sight unseen from a door-to-door skinhead salesguy, who the hell in the year 2012 thinks the way to make a sale is to dub the would-be customer "sweetheart"?
Seriously, though; even assuming I were the type of person to buy meat sight unseen from a door-to-door skinhead salesguy, who the hell in the year 2012 thinks the way to make a sale is to dub the would-be customer "sweetheart"?
If the economy wasn't so lousy and jobs difficult to find right now, I'd be tempted to answer, "probably some dude who's such an unskilled loser he can't find a better line of work than door to door sales." But that would be unkind of me, I suppose.
As an aside: one of the first jobs I ever had was selling subscriptions for Houston's second most popular newspaper when I was fourteen - on a commission basis. How I loathed that work. (Didn't like that paper either.)
I read a story a while back. A new guy in town ran into some crabbers down by the docks (Maryland, I think), and they called him "honey", which got him all irritated, until later on when he found out that they called everybody "honey". But that was a long time ago. Weird, the kind of stuff that sticks in your brain.
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