This is the fourth installment of the series about the time I was traveling in encyclopedias that began here.

I had finally made a sale, but when Dick, my team leader, looked at the sales agreement, he turned to me and said, “This isn’t valid. The buyers aren’t 21.” 

So the two of us went back to the house where a couple of married minors lived and asked if one of their parents would co-sign for them. They said yes, but of course, they never got back to us. So I lost that first sale.

Meanwhile, Dick pointed out that I shouldn’t have let them fill out the form themselves; he reminded me that he always filled out the form as he asked the buyers for their information, one of the reasons being to head off situations like this.

Well, the weeks went by and I wasn’t making any sales, and then they moved me to Rick’s team. The reason I was given was that Dick was certain that I was ready to break out at any moment, and Rick was very near to making some sort of goal and just needed his team to make a few more sales to help him reach it.

So off we went to another locality, I forget where. By the way, one of the members of Rick’s team was his younger brother, and while Rick was OK, I took an instant dislike to the younger brother.

Rick dropped me off, I started knocking on doors, and when a fellow let me in, he and his wife seemed very receptive to my pitch. I was getting excited because I genuinely thought I was about to make my first actual sale. He had to excuse himself for a moment to make a phone call, but he came back pretty quickly, and I continued.

I was feeling really good about my chances for making the sale, and I had gotten nearly to the end of the pitch when there was a knock on the door. The fellow got up to answer the door, and it was a cop—who proceeded to arrest me for soliciting without a permit.

It turned out that the fellow I was pitching to was an off-duty cop and the phone call he had made was—well, you get the idea.

I was taken to the station, and I explained that my team leader would be expecting me at a certain location at a certain time, so they let me go with a ticket and a warning not to try any more soliciting that evening.

As our team was waiting for Rick to pick us up, a police car drove by and slowed down. It was the fellow I had tried to sell to, now on duty. Rick’s brother piped up, “I don’t like pussy cops.” 

There was a reason I had taken a dislike to Rick’s brother.

When Rick came to pick us up, I told him what had happened, and he took the ticket I had been given. The next day, he paid my fine and bought permits for everyone on the team.

To be concluded…