The Wasps

Insects are often just pests, causing sometimes discomfort and often annoyance. However, some of them do actually sting. It's the same with scumbags, or uninvited salespeople as they prefer to be called.

However, like the wasp they sometimes just sting and leave. Strangely this next fellow is my favourite example of a door-to-door salesperson. The following tale didn't happen to me, but rather my sister. This is the pushy-to-the-point-of-offensive fellow. Unlike the previously mentioned ones you don't feel sorry for him, and feel no guilt in telling him to smeg off.

This guy called around to the house, selling vouchers for what is admittedly a rather nice pub/restaurant in Limerick called The Bank. At least the pub is nice, I've never eaten in the restaurant part.

Anyway, already you will see the first flaw in this guy's situation. Selling vouchers? He wanted €20 for a voucher which gave you a discount in The Bank restaurant. Maybe the voucher entitled you to more than €20 worth of food, I don't know - but vouchers are supposed to be either a) something you get free by buying another product during some kind of promotion or b) something you buy when you can't think of a real present for someone. In any case it's the first time I've heard of someone selling vouchers door-to-door to dine in a restaurant. They mustn't have been doing very well.

Anyway, my sister replied with the usual excuse, Sorry I don't have €20 on me.
At this point, he replied, "What, surely you must have €20 somewhere in the house!". She held her ground and insisted that she didn't have it, and he continued to press, "are you honestly trying to tell me that you don't have €20?", etc. She may have had the money but it was obviously needed for more important things and she eventually managed to fight him out. (I dread to think that if she had the money to spare she may have been tempted to pay the man just to get rid of him - a common tactic used by these people).

Anyway, surely it's obvious to you now the cheek of this fellow - calling my sister a liar, combined with prying into her business. I can't imagine it's an advised sales method to insult the potential buyer, and he had to leave with one more voucher than he wanted.

I don't think I'd ever get into this situation because I'd probably just say "No thanks" from the outset, but I think I will answer that I don't have it on me the next time as I'd like to see the conversation going like a well-played game of chess, as follows.

Him: "Come on, you must have €20 in the house somewhere."
Me: "Didn't you hear what I just said? Why would I lie about it?"
Him: "To get rid of me?"
Me: "Why would I want to get rid of you if I wanted to buy the thing?"
Him: "Er... because you don't want to buy it?"
Me:

If any readers has any good ideas of how the sales person could manouvre themselves out of that a bit better than my ideal situation above, please please post.