Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!

[Note from the proprietor: This here post is my entry for this month's What I Learned From... writing project. This month's topic is "Odd Jobs", and if you'd care to enter (we'd love to have ya!), just click that cute little link there and check it out!]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… (Well, actually, it was right here in Houston, but since I was just a teen-ager at the time, it might as well have been a completely different universe.)

Anyway, ever since my very first job (behind the counter at Dairy Queen), I’ve done quite a few things to earn a dollar or two (and in some cases, that’s pretty much all I got!) It’s no surprise that most of the more esoteric things were pretty much during my sad, misspent youth (hey, when you’re still in high school, you’ll do pretty much anything to earn date money). Things like, let’s see now…

• Working the concession stand in a movie theater - and later as an usher (I took the job so I could earn enough money for a motorcycle and thus be free of Mom and the family car)
• “Help” in the children’s facilities at a local country club (a menial, demeaning task; I worked harder than I’d ever worked before on my first day, and the next day they fired me because I was “too thorough”!)
• Carpenter’s helper (spent a few months one winter helping a finishing carpenter do the wood trim on new houses - a good job but very hard on the knees because they always gave me the baseboard trim to install)

… and many, many more. But probably the most unusual of my many jobs, and the one that stands out the most was that time I spent as a Fuller Brush Salesman.

Does anybody still remember Fuller Brush? They used to sell door-to-door, and yes, that was my job. I had this little kit of samples and things we had to carry around, hitting every house on a selected number of blocks. I was one of a team of young fellows who hit the Houston neighborhoods every Saturday.

But there was this one summer Saturday I remember…

It was especially hot that day (remember, this was Houston in the summertime - miserably sultry at the best times), and I had several very long blocks to cover before the guy with the car came back to pick us up. (That was the genius of the system - they dropped us off in a neighborhood nowhere near home, and we HAD to get to the finish point before getting picked up at the end of the day. Downright sneaky!)

All morning long, I worked my way up one side of this really long street and down the other, proudly showing off our home and personal care products to whoever would open the door. (I can’t imagine a door-to-door business being too successful today, considering how our cultures have, um, declined over the years, but at the time it was quite a viable business model.)

I stopped for lunch under a handy shade tree, and went over to the next street for the afternoon slog. Now it was getting starting to get really hot. The case of samples was getting heavier and heavier as time wore on, and I began to wonder if I was going to make it. On top of that, my feet were really starting to get warm; downright steamy, even. Ugh!

It finally got so all I wanted to do was take my shoes off and let the ol’ dogs get a breather! I looked around for a resting spot, and ended up sitting on the curb for a few minutes in front of one of the houses. I set my case down and proceeded to remove my shoes and socks, and then had a moment of brilliance.

By an amazing coincidence, one of the items in my case was a can of aerosol foot spray! How about that? So I took the can out and sprayed the soles of both feet. Wow, it was like… like fresh summer dew on a cool morning… dipping my feet in a cool, clear stream… walking in the surf at Galveston (er, without the gritty sand, that is)… well, you get the picture, right?

Man, I have no idea what that stuff was, but I would have bought a case of it myself right about then!

After a few minutes of this, though, I knew I had to get going. So I reluctantly put on my shoes and proceeded on my way. Since I was already in front of this house, I went on up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

A nice lady came to the door, and before I even managed to get a word out, she said, “Honey, I saw you use that foot spray, and it looked like it really helped you. I’ll take 10 cans of it! What else ya got?”

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! (Sound of me, being knocked over with a feather.) I’d been talking myself blue in the face all the way up one street and down another (and doing fairly well, I must say), but here I’d made a sale without saying a word! Naturally, not being willing to just leave it at that, I started showing her some of the other products she might want. And she listened. And bought.

It was a glorious moment, I’ll tell ya!

Well, my Fuller Brush career fell on hard times before too long (I couldn’t stand it anymore!), but I’ve never forgotten that day, nor that nice lady. Thinking back on that experience, I’d say there were some pretty valuable lessons to be learned, and since this is WILF week, well, why don’t I just list a few of the P’s and Q’s here? (Well, maybe just the P’s. We’ll save the Q’s for another day.)

Perseverance - I have no idea how far I really had to walk that day, but I know that, what with the ol’ knees and feet not bein’ what they used ta be, well, it’s probably farther than I could comfortably walk today! But at the time, I knew I had to keep going, no matter what. Hey, it was the job.

Pride - To be honest, I was proud to be selling these products - they were really very good! The thing is, though; no matter how good your product or service, there is no better testimonial than when it’s something you’d use yourself! I didn’t have to tell her how good the foot spray was; I showed her.

Public - If nothing else, understand this one thing, and this one thing only: everything you do is being observed by someone. Whether you know it or not, people are watching you (which will probably make you either aware - or paranoid). But (and here’s the good part), you can turn it into an opportunity as well.

Potential - Having opened the door with one product, I used the opportunity to make the sale even bigger with other items. By the time I was finished, I’d sold several cans of paneling polish (many homes those days had wood paneling), spot removers, and of course, several brushes (they used to be the best). I think it might have been some kind of one-day record or something.

Possible - One of the things I learned from doing so many odd jobs over the years of my youth was that there are literally no limits to what the possibilities are out there in the world! If you can imagine it, you can probably figure out a way to get paid for it - if you’re willing to do your homework first.

Well, a lot of other jobs have come and gone, and even what I do now may not be the final one; who really knows? All I can say is, the world is full of opportunity, and if you’re not afraid to do the sometimes menial stuff, well Bubba, you just might stumble across something really interesting!

[Hey, if you think you've got something you'd like to share about an odd job you've had, why not join us this month? Just click on this link for all the details.]

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!