Door to Door Peepholes

We moved into our new house last Monday. Bright and early on Tuesday morning we took a field trip to the mail box so we could try them all until we got ours. The real estate investor forgot to tell us our mail box number, among a myriad of other things they/he/she/it conveniently forgot to do. When we got back we were surprised to find that there was a man at our door.

There aren’t many people in the neighborhood, as it is new yet, and in fact some of the houses down the block are still being finished, with port-a-john out front and all. So needless to say, I was surprised to find anyone lingering on our doorstep and peering into our yet-uncovered windows. The words came out of his mouth at somewhere between a mile a minute and faster than a flash of lightening. He proffered a peephole and asked me to look through it, and if I liked it. “I know I have a tan,” he said, “But I’m all right.”

He flashed a drill that he kept in a satchel and told me that it would only take him five minutes to install said peephole into our brand new, unmarred door. And it would only cost $382. For both of you dear Readers that do not know me and Sweetface, I’ll interject that Sweetface is 6’4” and well, an imposing figure, really. Thankfully, he is also the quiet type (at least around strangers) so we are able to keep up the illusion that people should be afraid of him. It’s a comfort having that advantage, and probably part of the reason that we aren’t the proud new owners of a $35 peephole (Swindle F. Peephole was only joking about the $382). That, and I was kind of loath to have a stranger drill a hole into one of the few things in the house that seems to be working.

We had to assert several times that we were, indeed, too busy for peephole installation at the moment. The conversation took more than the five minutes it would supposedly take to install the peephole. I asked for a card, which surprise of all surprises, he didn’t have. He then admitted to waiting on his free cards from VistaPrint. Nothing engenders my confidence in a business person like free business cards. You’d think with the booming new housing market in the valley that the peephole installers would be doing pretty well.

It's too bad we're limited in the kinds of signage we can post on our windows, because I have the perfect phrase to deter salespeople. Solicitors: Stick it in your peephole. Maybe we need a custom-made welcome mat.