Rolling up my driveway to leave yesterday, a man was attempting to knock on my front door. I stopped and rolled down the window. He was from the cable company. We have Internet through them, our neighbours have cable, and their cable has been down for nearly a month because a tree fell on the wire. It's our tree, but their wire. The electrical company came out and dealt with a previous tree in 24 hours, the cable company, not so much, it seems.
I assumed that's why he had come- the neighbours have an easement on our driveway because that's the only way to access their backyard and handle things like garbage pick up.
"Do you have cable?"
"No, it's the neighbours. They're down the driveway."
"Oh, they're the other apartment?"
"It's not an apartment, they're the house down there, they use their back door for a service entrance."
"So, do you just have...?"
"Internet, yeah."
"You like it?"
"Sure."
"Any problems with it?"
"Only when it rains."
"Really?"
"Yeah, sometimes."
"Have you called about it?"
"No."
This same Internet provider company in a different town always maintained this same problem, which happened with greater frequency, wasn't their fault. Of course I'm not likely to call a national company up just for them to read me the same script.
"Next time it happens, give them a call and let them know, because it could be something real simple and they can get out and fix that, no problem."
I wonder about my neighbour's cable, and why he's not down there fixing it, if this is the case.
"So, why don't you have cable with us?"
"I don't like to pay that much money for ads."
I once stymied a satellite salesman with this argument.
"I see your point there. Did you have cable with us before?"
Oh. This man is not a tech. He's a salesman. Great.
"For a while, it's not something we watch enough to make it worth the money."
"How little would you be willing to pay?"
Guy, I'm sitting in my car, in my driveway at 5:30. Do you really think that I want to have this conversation with you right now?
"Sixteen bucks," I say, remembering how much we pay for Netflix. I should have said 6.
"I can do twenty."
"Tell you what, you give my husband a call and tell him about it."
"Oh, is he home?"
"No. I'm going to pick him up right now. I'm late picking him up right now."
"Well, you know, I don't like to do a hard sell or anything."
I'm in my car. I am trying to leave my house. You are still talking. What part of that is soft selling?
"I say, give him a call, he likes to watch football, maybe he'll go for it."
I'm in the process of divorcing my husband. There's no way he's going to go for it.
"Yeah, it's a great sports package, did you watch Company's Proprietary Sounding Sports Channel before?"
"I have no idea."
"Tell you what, let me leave this flyer with you, and you can talk it over and give us a call."
Ah, you don't have the power to call him. That's fantastic.
"That sounds great."
"Because, you know, that'd be twenty, so you'd be paying 89.99 instead of what you pay now."
"Absolutely, we'll think about it, you have a great day, OK?"
"Uh, yeah."
We currently pay about 75. 75+20!=89.99
I take his sheet, and drive up the driveway and away. I wonder suddenly where this man's van is. There's no parking on the bend I live on, he's certainly not parked in the driveway anyplace. I know my brother is home, so even if this guy is just checking out properties to rob later, there's someone in the house.
I pick up my husband from work, drive home to drop him off at the top of the driveway and drive to the rehearsal I have to be at in half an hour. Further up the street, I pass the cable guy again, walking, talking on his phone. He does a double take as I drive by.
If we're all found dead and robbed in the next month, please look for Eric, the phoney cable guy.
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