There are some adjustments to be made moving from a midtown high-rise doorman building to an eight-apartment walk-up in Queens:
What I hate the most about not having a doorman is that people will ring my buzzer all the time, even though I do not know who they are and will not let them in. This happened a few nights ago. We didn't let him in. But someone did.
He knocks on our door. We ignore him. He knocks again. If I were alone, I certainly wouldn't have answered, but Snowman was there. We asked who he was; he mumbled something incoherent about "energy" and "ConEd." This is of course the beginning of a story on the 6 o'clock news about some crazy murderer who poses as a ConEd worker and rapes old ladies. But we opened the door anyway.
It was an 18-year old kid selling energy. I'm not kidding. You know how you can change your energy provider? It doesn't have to be ConEd (if you don't know, go here). This kid is going door-to-door trying to sign people up to his company...Energy Plus or something. He asks to see our ConEd bill, which I can't find for like five minutes. He's giving his spiel, which I can't totally understand because he has a really strong accent, and at 18, I doubt he is highly knowledgeable about his product anyway. So Snowman says, "Okay, leave us your information and we'll look it over." Salesman says, "Oh no, you have to sign up right now." We say, "Sure...we'll give our personal information to a person we don't know working for a company we've never heard of. Wait, I have a better idea. Why don't we just give you all our credit cards? I'll write my social security number on a scrap of paper and I'll also give you my city of birth, because you know how they like to ask that as a 'security' question. You want a beer? I got some in the fridge."
He leaves and proceeds to knock on our neighbor's door. I kind of felt bad for him. That's gotta be a shitty job. Even if he's trying to scam us, that's still gotta be a shitty job.
The next day when I come home from work I hear an upstairs neighbor (I hardly ever see any neighbors) calling me out. He's about my age and he's got a charming Irish accent. He just wants to talk about the crazy energy salesman and wants to make sure I'm not letting random people into the building (which I assure him I am not). He's going on about it all and I'm thinking, "Wow, I have a cute neighbor."
I find the whole thing absurd. What happened to vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias? I don't even get freaking Girl Scouts on my street. But energy providers? Yeah, that I got.
- The apartments creak.
- The water temperature is never consistent.
- There are no right angles in my apartment (seriously, everything is like 92° or 88°...hanging blinds are a bitch!).
- Packages are now delivered to work since there is no one to sign for them.
What I hate the most about not having a doorman is that people will ring my buzzer all the time, even though I do not know who they are and will not let them in. This happened a few nights ago. We didn't let him in. But someone did.
He knocks on our door. We ignore him. He knocks again. If I were alone, I certainly wouldn't have answered, but Snowman was there. We asked who he was; he mumbled something incoherent about "energy" and "ConEd." This is of course the beginning of a story on the 6 o'clock news about some crazy murderer who poses as a ConEd worker and rapes old ladies. But we opened the door anyway.
It was an 18-year old kid selling energy. I'm not kidding. You know how you can change your energy provider? It doesn't have to be ConEd (if you don't know, go here). This kid is going door-to-door trying to sign people up to his company...Energy Plus or something. He asks to see our ConEd bill, which I can't find for like five minutes. He's giving his spiel, which I can't totally understand because he has a really strong accent, and at 18, I doubt he is highly knowledgeable about his product anyway. So Snowman says, "Okay, leave us your information and we'll look it over." Salesman says, "Oh no, you have to sign up right now." We say, "Sure...we'll give our personal information to a person we don't know working for a company we've never heard of. Wait, I have a better idea. Why don't we just give you all our credit cards? I'll write my social security number on a scrap of paper and I'll also give you my city of birth, because you know how they like to ask that as a 'security' question. You want a beer? I got some in the fridge."
He leaves and proceeds to knock on our neighbor's door. I kind of felt bad for him. That's gotta be a shitty job. Even if he's trying to scam us, that's still gotta be a shitty job.
The next day when I come home from work I hear an upstairs neighbor (I hardly ever see any neighbors) calling me out. He's about my age and he's got a charming Irish accent. He just wants to talk about the crazy energy salesman and wants to make sure I'm not letting random people into the building (which I assure him I am not). He's going on about it all and I'm thinking, "Wow, I have a cute neighbor."
I find the whole thing absurd. What happened to vacuum cleaners and encyclopedias? I don't even get freaking Girl Scouts on my street. But energy providers? Yeah, that I got.
6 comments:
Very funny story! ANd yeah, it sucks when people ring like every buzzer just hoping someone will let them in. Happens to me all the time. It's like, JACKASS IT'S 3 AM and I'M SLEEPING and you ring MY buzzer?!?! Now my dog is barking and it will take him, me, and my boyfriend an hour to get back to sleep because now that we're awake, surely at least one of us will have to pee. SUCKS.
I miss the Girl Scouts though, with their amazing cookies... I definitely wouldn't yell if THEY came a buzzin' ;)
Seriously.
When I was living down in West Palm Beach for a year, I had this knock on my door. It was this kid trying to sell "magic cleaner." It was one of those industrial unlabeled squirter bottle things and, like... I don't know. Windex? But he seriously was spouting the wonders of his magic cleaner. Said it would clean anything. Because not only was it a powerful formula, but it was blessed because it was created by and sold by Christian Youth Ministry.
I was like "So what's the stuff made of? 409 and Windex mixed together?"
"Can't tell you, man - It's magic. But trust me, it'll clean anything."
"Anything?"
"Anything," he says.
"Will it clean my dirty soul?"
He stared at me for at least 30 seconds before walking away.
I can't wait to read the post about the "good things"!
I wish somebody would sell dirty souls door to door. I'd totally buy one of those.
You have a cute Irish neighbor???
I do, but I think he lives with a girl. If I see him around again, I'll try to do some sly digging.
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