Um, The Rudeness Started When You Came To My Door

Twice in the past few weeks I've been dissed for rudeness by door-to-door salesmen.

The first was some middle-aged yutz in a bowling shirt who was selling something about roofing — I was just coming around to tell you that we're giving everyone in your neighborhood a great deal on yada-yada-yada that even comes with included free blah-blah! I had the door open a crack and was holding back a very confrontation-oriented Digory, who was emitting I-wanna-kill noises, with his paws scrabbling on the wooden floor. Our roof is just fine, thanks, so I started making sorry-not-interested murmurs, which the guy took as a signal to keep talking and try selling harder; at that, I looked him in the eye, said "No thank you, we're not interested", and closed the door. From out on the porch, he exclaimed "you know, you're a really rude guy!", and stomped his way down the steps.

Yesterday, I was in the middle of debugging a particularly hairy problem when the doorbell rang. Digory was already slavering at the door with his hackles up, so I didn't even open the door; instead, I just flipped up the curtain over the window to see if it was our mailman or the UPS guy. Nope; it was a teenagerish male who was selling mumble-mumble for the mumble club -- "if I sell enough, I could win a trip to Italy!" (If you're selling something for a school club, shouldn't you be in school on a Wednesday morning? Gosh, could this be a door-to-door magazine scam?) I shake my head no, say "sorry, not interested", flip the curtain down, and walk away. Again, from the porch, the loud indignant voice: "Man, that was like the rudest thing ever!"

Since when did people who are interrupting my day to try and sell me scamworthy products start handing out judgments on rudeness? If these trends continue, I'll have to become the Grumpy Old Man of our block, yanking in the Welcome mat and nailing up a NO SOLICITORS sign, or install a discreet Curmudgeon Cam near the front door, so that I can know who's knocking without having to get up from my desk.