Doofus And Gallant

My mother has a saying, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.”

A few days ago, two young men came to our door within an hour of each other. Both were scamming – I mean, selling something.

The first was an exercise in contrasts: nice shirt, ugly tie and a million dollar smile with a mouth full of expensive metal caps. He was ostensibly selling magazines to help urban youth. I fell for that scam twice, ages ago in another city, and won’t again. But he went out of his way to charm, and I was charmed. I gave him a few bucks for the entertainment --- I mean, for the Cause.

The second guy was his antithesis. In scruffy shorts and flip-flops, he either had an unfortunate harelip surgery or a permanent sneer. He wanted me to replace our lovely original 1939 wooden windows with aluminum. I refused. He looked scornful and called our windows “ugly”. I shrugged. Then, as if he was talking to a child, he explained that aluminum windows would reduce our heating and cooling bills. So I told him we don’t have either central heat or air conditioning.

You’d think I’d just spat in his beer bong. With infinite contempt, he asked, “What do you do when it gets hot?”

I smiled sweetly and answered, “We open the windows.”