The traveling-salesmen is oft-forgotten, save for 50s inspired tv ads and reruns of Pleasantville. Whether vacuum cleaners or a hand-held mixer with an amazing 3 speeds, the traveling salesman had the latest innovations at bargain basement prices for every ordinary suburban housewife. However, door-to-door sales, albeit due to increased crime rates or the women's rights movement, have been replaced by infomercials and charming in-store sales reps. Unlike the milk man, whose friendly demeanor and glass vessels of milk are remembered with fondness, the traveling salesman is stereotyped as a smarmy manipulator not unlike a used car sales man, though, perhaps without the wife-beater and stogy which are characteristic of such proprietors.
The modern salesman works inside stores and inside bars. In the store he tries to charm women into buying products and in the bar he tries to impress women with the products he sells, simultaneously feeding his own ego while planting the seed in an unassuming female mind that both he and the product he peddles are desirable. Ultimately, it is the product that determines a salesman's success in both endeavors. Let's say a man sells rare gemstones and is privy to a hefty company discount. That may be enough to get a lady to consider both a new garnet necklace as well as a short-term relationship, despite the fact that the man may be a dwarf who lives with six of his friends and a chick with a severe apple allergy.
What then happens if you sell inflatable kayaks? Something the urban girl on the go (its 2011 people, suburban housewives shop at Target, not specialty stores) has no need for?True, a flash flood may occur in which case a flotation device would be helpful, but the urban girl is, by virtue of being urban, surrounded by extremely tall buildings, a number of which have flat roofs on which to sit. So what happens to this salesman, with nothing to sling to detract from his unbecoming qualities, nothing to compensate for his inefficiencies?
The answer? Absolutely nothing.
