Thursday, May 13, 2010

Skateboard Skeptic

Speaking of door-to-door salesmen, which we weren't, I don't think Fio has told you about her most recent encounter with such.

It happened in the gloaming, that hazy evening time after supper but before night darkness has settled in. The doorbell rang.

Fio hopped up and and looked through the plate glass door to discover an overturned skateboard, its wheels still a-turnin', on her front porch, an interesting, uh, turn of events because Fio's driveway is gravel--all fifty yards of it. She opened the door and a man leaped onto the porch from behind the side of the house. Picking up the skateboard, he smiled with all his teeth and explained that he was part of some sort of college project which she can't remember now. Now, Fio has a soft spot in her heart for college students and their projects so she listened to his spiel sympathetically--until he said he had to raise money for a trip to London and this was what his professor had saddled him with, at which point he whipped out that laminated list of magazines we've all seen so many times.

Fio is a born skeptic, and there were a few problems with his story. Number one, he was in his thirties, too old for a skateboard. Number two, the college project story was ridiculous. Number three, he tried to tell me his family lived in our neighborhood, but no one lives in our area by the name he gave me. Number four, when I tried to put him off and asked for a phone number, he couldn't give me one, not even his "father's." Number five, he grinned like a maniac.

And then there was the stupid skateboard.

Fio pondered the skateboard all evening and finally came up with a likely scenario. Picture this. Fiorella answers the doorbell of her urban home and discovers a skateboard upside down on her front porch. A man appears--or maybe he gets up from the ground--and says he slipped off her porch. He limps. Fiorella, afraid of a lawsuit, signs up for multiple magazines.

Yeah, like heck she would.

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