E.O. Schaub

I’m not sure why, but when I was a kid I seemed to get the idea I was supposed to be a great salesperson. My favorite pretend game was to set up a store and arrange the shelves, trying to make them as “real” as possible. I’d rinse out old orange juice containers and yogurt cups, put them on top of some cardboard boxes and voila! Eve’s General Store was open for business, (at least until mom got ahold of the yogurt cups). I could usually count on my brother to be a customer for a minute or two before he got bored and went off to play Atari Pac Man and drink large quantities of Mountain Dew. I suppose maybe I inherited some gene or other from my grandfather, who got his start selling Wear-Ever aluminum pans door to door, and worked his way up to Head-Big-Shot-in-Charge-of-Something. (Warning: this is how much our grandchildren will know about us, one day.)

I used to pore over the opportunities to sell door-to-door that occasionally arrived in the mail, or came home from school, dreaming… But, dreaming what? I can’t even remember what us little snake-oil salesmen were supposed to earn for our efforts- prizes? Money? A guest spot on Star Search?- so it can’t have been about that. I think I just liked the idea of selling, of being the middleman who didn’t make a product, didn’t buy a product, but made that connection which made things happen. Plus, you get to handle money, which for a sixth grader is all kinds of exciting. Continue reading Door to door →