Underwear Man

Today a fat, old, hairy man answered the door in his whitey-tighties.  I thought that only happened in movies.

Deuces Wild

I got caugt in a thunderstorm a few days ago.  It was raining so hard, I couldn't even see.  I came out of a house and was outside for barely a minute, and I was so wet it was like I had jumped into a pool. I ran to a house of an elderly couple I had made friends with earlier in the day, and they invited me in and gave me towels to dry off with.  We ended up talking, and the lady told me this story:

"I was on the train with my sister when I was newly married, and a bunch of army boys got on at one of the stops by the base.  They came in and asked us if we wanted to play cards.  I had never played cards, but I thought they were handsome so I went anyway.  They were passing the cards out, and they said, "Deuces Wild."  I thought they said (whispers out the side of her mouth) "douches."  But I didn't have any idea what that was, so I asked them.  I said, "What's a douche?" "

Gayrage

This is a story from my boss:

He was selling to a lesbian couple.  He asked about the garage door, and they quickly corrected him.  "Oh, that's not the garage, thats the gayrage.  We haven't called it garage in forever." 

They had two sons.  One was "gayer than gay, the other was just confused about life."

When the ladies found out my boss was from Utah, one said, "Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of Mormons up there.  I'd like to be Mormon, then I could have all those wives."  They gay son retorted, "You're retarded, thats not even how it works."

Lost Grandpa

So I knocked into a previous customer, and I knocked on their door so that I could get their name and use it when talking to the neighbors.  But as soon as they answered, I felt awkward just asking their name and then walking away, so I asked about their system and how it was going, and how long they had it, and stuff like that.  I didn't really care but like I said, I had to make it ok to ask their name, first.  She was elderly and actually had a bunch of questions, and I ended up spending a half hour with her practicing turning the alarm on and off and how to bypass the door sensors and all that.  I wrote everything down for her.  I didn't really mind because it was hot outside and their house felt nice.  The whole time the husband is sitting in the living room watching TV.

When I'm wrapping things up, she suddenly starts mouthing something to me.  I was like, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."  In a low voice so her husband can't hear, she says, "I want to know how I can still have the system say "BACK DOOR" when the door opens, but not have it call out to the police.  I like it when it does that for me because then I can keep better track of him (points to husband.)"  I must have looked confused, because she went on to explain,  "The other night at 1:00 in the morning, I was woken up by "BACK DOOR," and I realized he had left.  He had gone to get the paper.  I just worry about him walking out and getting lost."

Dude, I don't want to get old.

Name Game

We always name drop in our door appoach, meaning we'll ask if the person we're talking to knows "The Woodalls? or Tim and Alisa down the street?  They live like (pretend to count) four or five houses down?  Have you seen that orange sign on their yard?"  The names we drop are our customers already in the area, and the idea is to let people know that we are already serving people in the neighborhood, you can see our sign right on their yard, so don't be afraid of us.  But, if you get sent out to a new area, then you don't have any customer's names to drop, so you just make one up.  Today I knocked a whole street using a name of someone I sold the day before in another town.  I just made the location of their house very vague. "They live on Langdon over there."

But the weird thing was that like five people agreed with me, saying that they didn't know that their name Woodall, but that they had seen the orange sign.  I was like, "Man, what is up with all these liars, or at least people wanting to pretend like they knew what is going on in their neighborhood, because there is totally no sign out there."  One guy was even like, "The Woodalls?  Do they live in the blue house right on the corner?"  Not wanting to be trapped in a lie in case he knew who actually lived in the blue house on the corner, I said, "Not exactly, but right around there." 

A couple hours later I knocked the blue house on the corner.  They have our orange sign on their lawn.  I wish there name really was Woodall.

No Soliciting

I used to not knock on doors that had "No Soliciting" signs on them.  But one of the first lines in our door appoach is "I'm actually not here selling anything..." so my mentors on the team suggested just doing it.  The worst thing they can do is call the police, and we all have licenses so nothing would happen.  So I am knocking in a SUPER ritzy, high class neighborhood, and I come to a door that has a printout from a home computer that is taped on the door saying "No Soliciting."  I ring the doorbell.  A woman answers the door with a scowl.  "Can you read?"  "I'm actually not here selling anyth-"  SLAM.  I literally laughed on her doorstep.  Rich people suck.

Miracle

It was POURING rain yesterday.  I wanted to quit so bad, but I told myself, "Self, you better stick this out.  Otherwise you will fail at everything the rest of your life."   Which is probably not true, but it got me into gear.  So, the coolest thing ever happened.  I walked passed a home that I had already talked to the day before, and the missionaries are sitting out on the porch with the girl who lives there!  I saw them come out of that home a few days before, and I wanted to go say hi, but they left before I could get overthere.  So this time I was like, "Cool, I'll go say hi, and it will give me a chance to get out of the rain for a second."  So I walked on over and she remembered me from the previous day, and then I said hi to her and the missionaries and introduced myself as a member of the Church.  They all thought it was neat, and then the girl was like, "Do you want to go to church with me on Sunday?"  I was like, "Um, YES!  That would be awesome!"  Apparently she has been meeting with the missionaries for a year, and has only gone to church like six times because she doesn't like to go by herself.  Which I totally understand.  So RIGHT when I walked up the missionaries had just asked her to go to church, and she was like, "I want to but I don't want to go by myself," and then MIRACLE... a strange girl in a bright orange shirt walks up who has just moved into the area and doesn't have anyone to go to church with, either. SO COOL!  They asked me to come to a lesson on Saturday, but I work the whole day.  But I have a half hour for lunch so if I'm still in the area I'll go.  It's just so cool because the reason I took this job was to save for my mission, and as a bonus it's nice practice walking around talking to people, and now I'll literally be doing missionary work while I'm here.  Its like the coolest thing ever. 

After the missionaries left I bore my testimony of how great church is, how powerful the atonement is, and how awesome baptism is.  And I loved it because it was REAL and I feel like everything in my job constitutes of telling truths in a round about way, but the gospel doesn't need you to beat around the bush.  You just say it how it is. AWESOME.