Solicitors - some random babble from my head

I hate them. I hate that they have to ring my door bell and cause chaos in my home, particularly with the dog. I am going to start letting Molly outside to jump all over them and maybe they will just leave. She would never hurt anyone - just drive them nuts.

There have only been a few instances where I have actually purchased anything from someone door to door. The company that keeps the bugs out of our house and the ChemLawn people.

I once foolishly purchased a DVD from some kid selling them when I was in college. I bought The Notebook. It came in (MONTHS later) and was not in English and clearly looked pirated. It didn't even play...needless to say, I was pissed. I found on my "receipt" a number and talked to a guy over and over and over again. I was supposed to get my money back. This went on for a while. With the help of the Internet and reverse phone number look up I was able to figure out where this dim-wit lived. Andrew kept me from knocking on his door and getting what was mine. How did I finally get my money back? With the help of the Murfreesboro Police Department. I know, a waste of your tax dollars at work, no? Once the police officer paid a visit to this man's house I received my refund within 2 or 3 days. Did the officer think I was nuts? Maybe. Do I care? Nope. I got what was mine back and hopefully scared the crap out of the douche bag that tried to sell that piece of garbage to me and then avoid me.

Then yesterday I came out of GFS to find a random piece of paper on my windshield. Don't litter on my car. My junior year of college some club put these colorful postcard like fliers on the windshields of the cars at our apartment complex. It was a hot summer day, and the stupid picture melted off onto my windshield and I couldn't get it off. There was a half naked woman melted to my window. I tried every cleaning product I owned and even tried scratching it off with a razor blade. I know my Cavalier wasn't all that, but I did try to avoid making it look to craptastic. When I realized I wasn't getting it off I called the club and demanded they come clean my window. I am sure this guy laughed at me after he hung up the phone, but I told him if he wants to put colored fliers on people's windows then he needs to remember that they will melt in the heat. Since he put it there he needed to come clean it off. Did I expect much to happen?? Maybe my car to be egged...but that didn't. That afternoon my window was SPOTLESS.

Recently we have had a string of people coming to our door to sell junk. Most recently a woman that ask me to taste the cleaning solution she was selling...after she licked the straw from the bottle first. Psycho. I closed the door. Or the guy that worked his way in to try and get us to clean our carpets, only to find a gun laying on the floor b/c the boys were headed out to the farm so shoot (that works really well to get them out fast!!).

I am putting a stop to this. Casey is awesome, and I told her about a no soliciting sign I want for my door. She said she would make me one with her Cricut. It will say something to the effect of "No Soliciting Except Girl Scouts."

God help the first person that ignores my sign. (No worries - I will not be rude to small children that try to sell wrapping paper or anything like that. This is purely for the idiots that ask me to taste their cleaning products.) If I really want something, I go an find it (like hunting down someone that sold Girl Scout cookies last year.) Also, asking for donations is soliciting to me. We give to causes we feel are important to us. Please don't come to my house asking for my hard earned money.

Now, I haven't figured out what to do on vacation though - where you pay to take the water taxi across to another part of the beach and then you get some random "tour" and the guy passes his hat around and bluntly asks you for tips. I didn't ask for a tour. I just wanted to get to the other side and I paid for that already.

This has been bothering me lately and it feels good to get that out there in the open. =)