No Soliciting

My doorbell rang 837 times yesterday ”” yes, 837 ”” so I’m going to put out a “No Soliciting” sign. I had one several years ago, but I should have put out a dictionary to go along with it. When I’d answer the door to a … what? Yes, a solicitor … and point to my simple two-word sign, making that face I reserve for stupid people and dogs peeing in my yard, they’d inevitably say, “I’m not soliciting. I’m …” and then they’d insert a word from the list below.

So, this is what I’m going to post near my doorbell.

Do NOT ring this doorbell if you are:

Selling

Explaining

Preaching

Teaching

Showing

Asking

Giving

Begging

Offering

Marketing

Peddling

Trading

Dealing

Wholesaling

Sermonizing

Indoctrinating

Educating

Instructing

Demonstrating

Lecturing

Pontificating

Evangelizing

Ministering

Soapboxing

or Bleeding. I just got new carpet.

If, however, I already know your name and you’re delivering a surprise culinary treat or mis-delivered mail or want to otherwise brighten my day, then by all means …lean on that doorbell!

Of course, if they’re really stupid, they won’t know most of those words. The downside is that someday I just may want Girl Scout cookies or my house number painted on the curb or to send an inner-city youth to Disneyland. It’s a cunundrum.

But one I’m willing to figure out without their help.

Do you get people ringing your doorbell when you don’t want them to? Are you nicer about it than I am? Or do you hate them with the white-hot intensity of ten thousand suns?

9 thoughts on “No Soliciting”

  1. Stephanie Johnson

    I wouldn’t say ten thousand suns, but I hate solicitors as well! There’s one church that has rung my doorbell way too many times, and when I tell them I used to attend, their eyes bug out as if to say, “So why aren’t you still attending?” When I tell them their retired pastor is a racist bigot, they consider it an honor. But yes, I am WAY nicer than most folks whose days are interrupted by these pests. I think I will borrow your idea and post it on my door, too! Good luck!

  2. As a Cub Scout, I was required to sell tickets to Scout-O-Rama, and went door to door on my street. One man answered his door grumpily, pointed to his “No solicitors” sign and said “Can’t you read? It says ‘No solicitors’!” I, sincerely, asked “What does that mean?” That was the day I learned that word.

    But of course adult solicitors have no excuse. Anyone who ignores the sign and rings anyway clearly cares more about their interests than yours, and forfeits the right of civil treatment. I don’t have a sign, I just deal with whoever comes by more or less politely, unless they do the thing where they have a counter-script for any possible thing you can say, and then I just shut the door. With very polite firmness.

    One thing that really kept me from ringing a neighbor’s doorbell once when I was helping my daughter sell Girl Scout cookies (this is not soliciting, this is a FAVOR to people) was the sign they had on the door which said “Day sleeper – please do not ring doorbell.” I asked them about it later, because I know them, and they said “Oh, that’s been up a long time. It’s not really true any more.” The next year I sold them a case of Tag-A-Longs.

    1. As your comments illustrate, George, very few kids ring doorbells anymore. And if they do, Mom or Dad is standing right there and I can give them both a lesson about the definition of “soliciting.” And “crazy mean lady.”

  3. I’ve had a No Solicitors and Pollsters sign for years and still get all kinds of people ringing the bell — even with a second sign that says, This Means YOU!

    Sometimes I tell people they need to go back to school and get their money back because they can’t read. Others I have to explain solicitor and pollster. Most I just have to say goodbye. I try to put up a sign about exceptions for Girl Scouts in February.

    But there was one embarrassing moment when I growled, Can’t you read? The guy knocking on the door was blind. True story.

    1. Karen … that is hilarious! Did you buy whatever it was he was selling? If so, I guess that’s a lesson for all you door-to-door salespeople out there. It won’t work on me, though, because I’ll just pretend to be deaf.

  4. You’d think living on the edge of civilization would save me from solicitors, but I do get the occasional religious group, and kids wanting money or a trip. Out here though they have to waste their gas not just their shoe leather to get to all these homes.

    And I don’t even have a doorbell!

  5. Ok, the blog I read immediately after yours includes this sentence, “I loathe red cabbage with the white-hot intensity of a thousand angry suns.”

    There’s a lot of anger in the blogosphere, people. Not that I disagree with it being applied to solicitors or cabbage.

    1. Clearly, red cabbage is ten times less loathesome than solicitors.

      And just an observation, Vicki, but you seem to be the common link with all the bloggy anger. I’m just sayin ….

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