Dagwood Bumstead I am Not

Oh, did I have a bad cheat yesterday. It was my worst one yet this year.

So, I was home sick from work. Marvin Gardens gave me his cold. I'm lying there on the couch, watching The E! True Hollywood Story on "Who's The Boss" (I wish I were exaggerating for comic effect, but no, that's really what I was doing). Suddenly my doorbell rang.

Let's talk about my door and its bell. Our front door is adorable (bah!). It is original to the house, which was built in 1935 or something. Hang on. Let me try to take a photo of the door, and I'll call Marvin Gardens to see when the house was built...

He is NEVER in the office when I call. I swear he was fired five years ago and he has bribed them to say he's "down the street" when I call. Down the street doing WHAT? Is he a prostitute? Is he selling fruit? Down the street.

At any rate, the door, which I have taken a photo of with my cell phone (I really need to find one of our actual cameras) has a large window in the center and it also has this very jarring, buzzy, 1935-ish bell. ZZZZzzzzzt! It goes. So right as I am learning about the trials of Tony Danza, the ZZZzzzt! happens. The sad part is, anyone at our door can look RIGHT IN and see our entire living room. And rudely, people often do. So when I saw a happy young guy peering in at me, I had to get up and answer the door.

It was a kid, one of those people selling things so that they stay out of gangs and go to college. He was trying to go back to University of Michigan. I am from Michigan. I paid for a lot of my college by myself. And he was so AFFABLE. He said I was the loveliest woman he'd seen all night. You KNOW I fell for it.

He was selling cleaning supplies, and he cleaned the rust from our driveway, the aforementioned front door window, and even our old, also-original-to-the-house brass doorknob. I bought the whole dang kit.

And when I made my way to the door, I said to myself, "Just tell him about your year of no spending. He'll be bored stiff. Tell him your blog address. Do not fall for this."

I am terrible, TERRIBLE at turning someone down, even over the phone. I can never kick those people to the curb, like Dagwood Bumstead does. I always feel sorry for the seller. What a crappy job it must be. If only everyone were like me, every salesperson would be a millionaire.

Well, anyway, we need cleaning supplies, right? At least it wasn't candy or magazines or something we really DON'T need.

And speaking of spending money, I did something fun today. I have officially been at my workplace for a year now, and once you have worked a year, you are allotted a certain amount of money that you can give to local charities. Oh, it was so much fun! There is a big list you go through, and you say how much you want to give within your allotted amount. It was the most fun perk I have ever had, honestly!

Maybe I need to start my own charity for pushovers who fall for charming salespeople.