The New Sales Strategy

I should start this post by saying that I did not sleep last night. I have been awake since about eleven o'clock yesterday morning. In the past thirty hours, I have eaten a little bit of real food, but mostly potato chips, Oreo cookies, and lots of pop. Whenever I stay up all night, it kind of messes with my senses.

I actually had to turn the TV on a few hours ago to see what day it was (I knew it was either Thursday of Friday, so it's not like I'm totally whacked out of my head). No sleep + junk food = a bad combination for me. It would be a fair assessment to say that right now I am not feeling too stable. The reason for my all-nighter had nothing to do with anything going on outside. I have a paper due for school on Friday, and it's not done yet (but it's getting pretty damn close).

I spend a lot of time peeking outside here. I don't always stare for long periods of time, but I hardly ever walk past a door or window without looking. It's weird, because I don't really think about it any more. I just do it. Anyway, a couple of hours ago, several people gathered on my corner for a while. The numbers fluctuated between two and five as they came and went, and together they stayed for about forty minutes.

This is a pretty regular occurrence at this time of day, so I often look for it. There are some regulars that I am surprised if they don't show up with the rest, then there are always the wild cards - people I've never seen or who haven't been around for a long time. The thing about this group though is that they are usually pretty quiet. Sometimes they might raise their voices in conversation a bit, but it's not screaming and shouting. Also, anytime I look, they are all on the sidewalk, rather than on my property. I know a few of these guys are dealers for sure, but to be honest you really couldn't make that charge from their behavior. as far as I'm concerned, I don't see this as a problem.

Anyway, about thirty minutes ago, I looked out and saw two guys that I didn't recognize. I'd say that I could name at least half the regulars around here, and identify at least another quarter by looks, so it really is unusual to see two strangers standing alone. Then one of them sat down on the retainer wall that I built this last summer. I know it's the perfect height to invite this, so I have been trying to watch closely and let people know I don't want them setting there. It's on my property. So if they're tired they can lean against the tree in the median (The median: a.k.a. - that strip of grass that I have to maintain, yet which I'm not allowed to tell people not to loiter or litter on).

So I'm watching now as the second guy sets something on my wall and pulls out his cell to start making calls. So I'm thinking I should go out and ask them to get off my property. But I'm wearing sweats right now, which makes it difficult to carry a gun. So do I tuck a knife in my waistband, or put my jeans or a coat on so I got somewhere to conceal? Maybe I should have stuffed it down my underwear. I go out there and say "Hi girls, you want to come in and play?", then they look down and see that big bulge, they'd probably run and never come back.

Or I could call FWPD. "Yeah, this is Mr. Marx on E. Suttenfield. There's some guys on my property. Do you want to send someone out to talk to them or should I." I know the last time I did this I got really good results. Anyway, as I'm thinking it over, the one guy stands up, the other one picks his stuff up from my wall and I can now see that it's a clipboard. As they walk away, I see the back of their jackets had some company logo (Ventronics or something like that).

And I thought to myself - Now that's a good scam. Carry a clipboard and wear a company jacket while your out standing on the corner. No one will ever suspect what you're really up to.

In hindsight, I'm a little glad that I didn't go out there myself and tell them to leave. I would have been within my rights, but I really don't mind if someone who's doing legitimate business here wants to stop for a minute and rest on my wall. But I'm really glad that I didn't call FWPD. I would have felt bad being the cause of them getting sued by the NAASP (National Association for the Advancement of Sales People) for undue harassment.

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