The salesman’s house call

Our house needs repairs, that much is certain. Over the years the exterior trim has transformed to a squirrel hotel with increasingly brazen lodgers. My husband answered the door to a cold-call ­contractor. (I just now checked Google; it says that’s risky.) I have a soft spot in my heart for those pavement pounders. It is their temerity I have to thank for the only family Bible we would ever own when I was a child, its center pages a panoply of color depictions of Jesus’ life that I often browsed on my parents’ bed.

I was heading out, but my husband said to stay, so we three sat in the living room, and I offered “Nick” a bottle of spring water, which he happily accepted. I note this because in hindsight I see the detail differently. I see the whole subsequent two hours and forty-five minutes as a psychological pas de deux (or trois, in this case) in which the best minds of Madison Avenue (as we used to say) were arrayed in a contest against an elderly couple.

My husband had told the salesman up front two definite things: We only want the trim done, and we will seek estimates from two other companies. Brothers and sisters, you would have marveled to see how smoothly, how deftly, the honed and sharpened emissary caused me to forget these resolutions, and how we moved to glossy photos of styles of vinyl siding.

Every question, every objection, was fielded with mastery, disarming me utterly. (My husband had dozed off on the sofa at some point, the midday effects of a bad case of insomnia.) It was just Nick and I now, yours truly being manipulated and admiringly watching myself being manipulated.

If we signed today (the able representative now pulled this offer out of his hat) there would be an additional discount on the company’s already low, low price. How irresistible! How sensible!

I was so close to affixing my John Hancock, Nick and I now thick as thieves. But suddenly my husband stirred and woke, and for all his sleep deprivation, was still holding firm to his two lines in the sand. Seeing victory being snatched away, and having met his match in my intrepid mate, the salesman played a last parlor trick and offered his final rock-bottom discount—on condition that we would write a review after the work was completed.

To this, my husband said, more than asked: “What if I wrote a bad review? Would I still get the discount?” “Yes,” said the salesman (though by this time he must have felt like Haman agreeing to lead Mordecai on a steed through the streets of Persia). And in that moment I realized that I can never again trust a business review online: If we were to consent to the salesman’s last proposal, we would most certainly be cynically favored for the company’s best workmanship and best crew, benefiting from a treatment not typical of the company’s work.

This is where the story gets interesting to me. You see, with dollar signs in my eyes, I nearly went along with the skeevy plan, with the Hail Mary discount that never would have seen the light of day had we not dragged our heels for two hours. I would have rationalized that the “sales pitch,” however razzle-dazzle, is a legitimate genre of human interaction.

But my husband challenged (not to say rebuked) the salesman for his squirrelly (not to say dishonest) performance. While for my part I was ready to countenance two different but valid levels of human interaction—transactional and Christian—my husband accepted no such compartmentalization. Our living room was like Areopagus meets Jerusalem.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, we didn’t sign. A narrow escape.

After the fact, I remembered that women are not to exercise authority over men for the reason that, as Paul explains, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived.” Call me Exhibit A for that doctrine.

In addition, I would like to have learned this from an otherwise wasted Tuesday afternoon:

In all our encounters with our fellow human beings, however brief or businesslike, what must never be forgotten is that that person with whom we are speaking, whatever else he is—sailor, soldier, salesman—is first of all an image-bearer of God, and in that given moment, in some relation to the personal-infinite Creator. This is the most basic thing, and it must matter even when we’re talking about fiber cement siding.