wherein smiley is tempted to be an SC

[smileyeagle1021]

OK, so a door to door sales guy knocked on my door today... now normally I don't mind these guys, they are doing a job, and honestly they are sometimes selling good things... magazine subscriptions that I already have is not one of them.
Normally when I say, sorry not interested they'll say, thank you for your time and move onto the next door... not this time... guy kept going on about how this was such a great deal (umm, sorry, it would only be a great deal if it was something I needed or even wanted).
I wanted to figure out how to get rid of him... and the entire time I'm thinking "what would amuse EQ the most if I went through with it"
So the plan I came up with, if I couldn't get rid of him in a less sucky way, was to, with as straight a face as possible, invite him to come inside and take off his clothes and I'll buy something after we've had some fun... I'm pretty sure that would have freaked him out enough to find an excuse to leave and would amuse EQ... thankfully though one of my neighbors heard one of the deals and actually liked and pulled him away from me (sorry EQ, you didn't get the amusement this time).

[Akasa]

Even though you didn't go through with it you have amused me greatly.

[PepperElf]

Bonus points if you happened to have a jar of butter or Vaseline close by.

course the really mean side of me comes up with things like, "What part of 'No' don't you understand?"

[SilverOrb]

Pam spray. It's more convinient.

[prb]

I love it when political volunteers come to the door and try to argue about policy. I take the brochure/postcard/flyer from them, quickly review it, return it, point out the fact that I support _ party and that I have a lawn sign from said party and am wearing a t-shirt with their name on it, sometimes if they try to convert me I point out the fact that I volunteer with the party I support. Usually I finish it with "Even though I don't support your party, I am glad to see people involving themselves in the democratic process and volunteering for their preferred party", typically I get the same thing back after saying it.

One party though, their volunteer said, after I pointed out the lawn sign, t-shirt and volunteering, pointed out their party's "benefits", and said "Well, we'll put up a lawn sign then". My response, uh... no you won't, and if you do I will be phoning the returning officer to inform them of it.

[smileyeagle1021]

Bonus points if you happened to have a jar of butter or Vaseline close by.
"

i may have to go out and buy a jar of vasaline just for that purpose

[Evil Queen]

You're so mean to me. Got my hopes up for nothing.

[Chromatix]

We have municipal elections coming up, which amazingly I'm allowed to vote in (I'm officially resident). So it's quite interesting to see how the Finns do this kind of thing.

I haven't seen any canvassers (yet). There's about three weeks to go, so that might change.

There are almost 1000 candidates for Helsinki alone. This makes choosing one... tricky. Especially as my Finnish isn't all that good.

They use Proportional Representation - which is why they can have almost 1000 candidates and still keep some sanity in interpreting the results. Basically, you vote for the candidate, but your vote is also tallied up for that candidate's party. Each party is then assigned seats in proportion to the votes they got, and the top candidates from each party are used to fill those seats. This is one of the fairer ways of electing a government, local or otherwise.

One of the major newspapers is running a "candidate matcher" - think of it as a simplified form of OkCupid. You enter your opinions on about 20 key municipal issues, and it finds which candidates hold views most (and, for laughs, least) like your own. You can then research those specific candidates more closely. So despite my poor Finnish, I've found someone I feel comfortable voting for.

But it'll be interesting to see if anyone bothers to do canvassing. It'll probably be done on a party level rather than individual candidates, if it's done at all.

[prb]

We have municipal elections coming up, which amazingly I'm allowed to vote in (I'm officially resident). So it's quite interesting to see how the Finns do this kind of thing.

I haven't seen any canvassers (yet). There's about three weeks to go, so that might change.

There are almost 1000 candidates for Helsinki alone. This makes choosing one... tricky. Especially as my Finnish isn't all that good.

They use Proportional Representation - which is why they can have almost 1000 candidates and still keep some sanity in interpreting the results. Basically, you vote for the candidate, but your vote is also tallied up for that candidate's party. Each party is then assigned seats in proportion to the votes they got, and the top candidates from each party are used to fill those seats. This is one of the fairer ways of electing a government, local or otherwise.

One of the major newspapers is running a "candidate matcher" - think of it as a simplified form of OkCupid. You enter your opinions on about 20 key municipal issues, and it finds which candidates hold views most (and, for laughs, least) like your own. You can then research those specific candidates more closely. So despite my poor Finnish, I've found someone I feel comfortable voting for.

But it'll be interesting to see if anyone bothers to do canvassing. It'll probably be done on a party level rather than individual candidates, if it's done at all.

Proportional Representation? Oh how I'd love to be you

[smileyeagle1021]

You're so mean to me. Got my hopes up for nothing.

out of interest... which outcome would you have preferred... the one where I offer, but the sales guy goes away, or the one where I offer and he starts taking off his belt while walking around me into the condo? Because that second one might disturb the neighbors

[Evil Queen]

Well, the latter would be more enjoyable in the long run. But I'd rather have been there to witness the look on the Sales Guy's face as he backs out of the drive way slowly.

I wish I had door to door sales poeple to be mean to.

[lupo pazzesco]

I get the door to door religious salespeople. It's annoying, they know they're not allowed on our apartment property, but they sneak in anyway, and then spread out, hitting as many apartments as they can. I can't count the number of times I've messed with their heads. I give them a chance, informing them politely I'm not interested. If they persist, then they really do bring it upon themselves.

I debated with a set of Mormons over the definition of solicitation, and even brought out a dictionary to prove my point. They actually conceded that they were in a sense "selling" their religion, so they were in fact solicitors. They really had no choice but to leave after that, I kind of won the debate.

My favorite is when I had brought home the skull of the model skeleton from my bone lab to use for some homework assignments. Some Jehovah's Witnesses wouldn't leave, even after I told them I wasn't interested, and wished them a good day, but they kept insisting they had a message to share. I asked if they'd be willing to share it with both me and George. They said yes. I brought out the skull and introduced them to George. (that IS is name, actually. Our lab supervisor named him George, and so I had George's head at home with me) It was fun after that!!

[smileyeagle1021]

Lupo, you should do what I do (well with the Mormons I just show them my copy of the BOM, so with the other religions), claim that I believe that all prayer, which trust me, they all want to say a prayer with you, should be done naked as to have no distractions... and if they are willing to disrobe with me to say the prayer, then I am more than willing to pray with them and discuss their religion... oddly, no one has taken me up on the offer yet

eta- i start out saying pretty much the same thing as just a dude (which really is about how my belief system now works)... I only do the whole invite them to get naked to pray thing if they get sucky about not taking a hint.

[JustADude]

Me, I just tell them I've already put a lot of thought into my beliefs, and that I adhere to a personalized code that I've developed through study of many different religions, which is somewhat similar to Deism.

Surprisingly few evangelicals know what a "Deist" is, and I often end up evangelizing THEM. Ironic, yes?

[Kiwi]

my mum once had a guy try and sell her one of those laminated pizza delivery offers

you know pay $28 now and get two free pizzas and 20% off for a year blah blah blah

when she said no (because in NZ we get our pizzas from an actual italian family run place) he snorted and said "well you look like you eat a lot of pizza"

mum was so shocked, she just shut the door on him and was all

by the time she had told my brother who went looking for him the guy was long gone

but thats a GREAT way to do business buddy!