Another door-to-door salesman…

As I am on my way out, rushing to a meeting on Main Street, Park City, I open the garage door and see a well dressed young man standing on an electric hoverboard. I say: “Hi, can I help you?” The man answers “Are you Swiss?” 

That doesn’t begin the exchange too well, not so much that I have nothing against Swiss nationals, but I’m in a hurry to get to my appointment and I see the guy’s question out of place. I sort of repeat, “What do you want?” 

He goes “Tell me, are you Swiss?” I go “I don’t care who I am, what do you want?” Finally the guy says he’s here to offer me a treatment to get rid of voles in my yard. I tell him, “I have nothing against voles, in fact, I love them” He goes: “Well, I can help you get rid of them?” I answer, “Where do you see a lawn where voles could roam?” 

True, the front of my house is one hundred percent rockscape with no blade of grass in sight. Finally, I get angry and tell the guy to go away, albeit in a nice way. He flies off on his hoverboard, disappears from my life and I drive to my appointment. 

The things that ticked me off during that encounter was the guy’s nonchalant attitude on his hoverboard, the fact that he wasn’t the good salesman like I expected him to be (he could have said, “How are you, nice property that you have, etc.”), that I felt he dropped into my life like a fish out of water, and that I – most certainly – failed to manage my feelings as I should have and let my displeasure show to that hapless afternoon visitor...