See, the deal was that I was staying with a buddy and his family, and every day his dad would drop us off, separately, way out in the country. Way out. And it was walk from place to place thereafter. Rain or shine.

Which wasn’t too bad. I was, after all, young, and had good feet, so I didn’t mind that too much. I didn’t much like going hungry tho, and unless there was a country store someplace close, lunch was a chancy thing. And I missed indoor plumbing, sometimes a lot. Amongst other things.

Anyways, for a metric for losing enthusiasm, the first week I was third in sales in the whole damn company, in spite of poverty and several hundred other salesmen. Week two, I was maybe 12th. Week three I was nowhere to be found in the standings, and by week four I was home.

Sales kinda left a bad taste. Heh. Six days and sixty-six hour weeks, for $30, were much better. I wasn’t gonna make my school money that way, but I didn’t have to see the nice lady go in the kitchen and dig food money out of the cookie jar to make a down payment on a Bible the family didn’t need either.

No – I don’t. I had the opportunity to meet/talk with some engineering students a while back, and I was impressed in spite of myself. They were as enthusiastic and as earnest and as obsessed with science as I was.

Not to get off on that but – - – I think the spread of intelligence is wider today. The gulf between the “smart” and the “dumb” has widened remarkably since I was in school.

Do you still sell religious items? None of my business, of course.

‘Twas a pretty good summer gig, really. A lot of the sales persons made their school money for the next year that way.

Except me. I wound up in the hills around Harlan, KY. Coal country, Which could’ve been good, but the mines hadn’t worked in 20 years. Serious poverty. A new Bible wasn’t on their radar. Food for tomorrow, yes. Bible, no.

Most of the schooling was in the best ways to present the wares, and stuff like that. And the close. and close. and close some more, until they said yes, essentially from a desperate desire to get you to just go away.

So anyways, I find myself wandering around the hills of SE KY, making cold calls, albeit with impeccable merchandise. It got old in a hurry.

You spent a week learning how to sell bibles?

Excuse me – but…how hard can it be?

Please forgive my ignorance. I’m a retired engineer, and never did really understand marketing and sales.

Other things puzzle me, like why is it that two of my posts in particular get 10x the clicks and looks of the others. I think its the chick pics.

If memory serves (subject to question), I was in a White Castle once. In Nashville. I think. I was there for a week to learn how to sell bibles.

No, really. Took a week.

You know – the ladies in White castle were always strange. No suck marks or anything, but strange. Cold. They were probably space aliens and I didn’t know it.

Ace, among others, had the pic. That’s where I got my copy.

Sure enough, they did. And do, seems like. Years of observation tend to bear out this observation.

Now that’s science, even if it isn’t boobies.

And hoo-haa’s are too explicit for a lot of surfers. And tongue-stuff and air-starts are old news too.

And I’ll not knowingly allow any winky’s to be displayed on this site. This is a no-winky zone. Sorry. I’m just a bit of a prude on this subject.

I’m really not interested in increasing the hit rate – I’m interested in messing with the hit rate.

It’s a “fiddling around” kind of thing. Its science!

Meanwhile (Up to 46 hits, btw) I need to come up with another test post. Oh! I guess I could do a Denny’s report – not that there’s much news there.