ScottSevener.com

You know those obnoxiously pushy vendors in the mall who you always try to avoid eye contact with because otherwise they’ll pull you into a 20 minute sales presentation for a sub-adequate cell phone plan or some overpriced lotion that will take minutes off of your face?

The wife and I totally got sucked into one of those presentations yesterday… L

We were nearing the end of our long day of Christmas shopping – two malls and countless bags later, we were pretty much ready to grab some dinner and call it a night when on our way back to the car, we passed a relatively new store selling spa stuff (you know, bath salts and lotions and all of that, or so we thought…). I suppose we should’ve taken a hint when we walked inside and immediately noticed that there wasn’t really a whole lot of product for us to browse, but hey, apparently I get gullible when I get tired!

Shortly after this realization, they descended on us – a girl who seemed nice enough on her own, and a creepy Italian guy who I’m pretty sure I was supposed to punch at least once or twice during our “conversation.” You see, it started with a simple demonstration of some weird salt shit that is supposed to exfoliate your skin 10,000,000,000,000x better than using soap and water … only idiots wash their hands with soap and water. At first I was only going to watch as the girl walked Sara through the process until the creepy Italian guy encouraged me that it was very manly to take good care of my skin. Or so said the guy standing there in something that Gene Simmons from KISS would wear, complete with snakeskin boots and a diamond hoop earring in his ear. Very masculine…

So we both do the little demonstration and we’re vaguely impressed because our hands do feel softer after basically just scrubbing them with salt and small spritzes of water – they feel soft because we just sanded a layer of skin off of them! Nonetheless, after listening to ten minutes about the amazing benefits of The Dead Sea and how it cured some king of syphilis or something, we hoped that our ordeal was just about over … but little did we know that it was really just beginning. The “conversation” eventually transcends into other skin diseases and out of nowhere, this dude starts explaining how my wife’s face is screaming out in pain. Classy, but it gets better as he elaborates that unless treated, the capilaries underneath her skin will eventually just explode and it’ll cost mucho deniro to get her back to the point where she’ll be willing to go out in public again after that.

Fortunately for us, he had a system that he was able to offer us.

Now I knew it was going downhill quick from here because I asked several times about the price, but he always dodged the question with the likes of, “Well, how much is your wife’s beauty worth to you?” and other slug-worthy lines. Somehow he managed to talk us into letting him do a “trial” on her anyways and within about five minutes, had certainly rubbed enough goop into her cheek to make it look different. Still not having the money to continue on with his treatment package, it was almost laughable as we watched him try to haggle from $500 all the way down to $150 before finally giving up and wandering away. On the way out, we still somehow ended up buying a jar of the salt stuff from the less obnoxious girl, albeit also with a 25% drop from their original asking price.

The moral of our story here today? How about three:

1. Never try new things on a whim, especially when you’re already tired and on your way to dinner.
2. Never trust a dude who wears snakeskin and diamonds … at least not together.
3. A guy who stands there pointing out the subtle flaws in your wife’s face is pretty much asking to get punched in his.

Lessons learned.

Today I was reminded of a pet peeve that seems to pop up each year around the holidays … and that pet peeve would be in regards to expectations for holiday tipping.

And I’m not even talking about the folks who work at Subway or Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts who put the tip jar out for doing their jobs, mind you – this time I’m concerned with the even more direct approach taken by our garbage men and mail men and seemingly everyone else who performs a service outside of my house that I’m using not even around to witness. Earlier this afternoon, I walked outside to retrieve our empty garbage can because today was trash day and low and behold, resting at the end of our driveway was the classic “Happy Holidays” card in a small plastic bag held down by rocks, with our garbage man’s home addresses written prominently on the front of the card.

I mean, I completely understand – I actually include our home address printed on the front of our Christmas cards, too … it’s just so that everyone else knows where to send our Christmas card in return, that’s all! I wonder what would happen if I just mailed him an empty Christmas card saying, “Happy Holidays – Sincerely, Your Customers” … would it genuinely be appreciated, or just make him pissed because I didn’t send a tip?

It makes me wonder how many people actually do give these folks extra money around the holidays because just like e-mail spam, they wouldn’t waste the time doing it if nobody responded. Ultimately, I think it just sort of bothers me along the same lines as those Starbucks tip jars because these aren’t waiters who earn a much smaller wage and rely on tips to make up the difference – they earn a full-blown wage from their employer, and in my understanding the mail carriers actually do pretty well. So why am *I* expected to give them extra simply for doing their job … just because it’s the holidays??? If my employer choses to give me a Christmas bonus, then great … but it’s not my fault if their bosses don’t do the same for them! Take it up with Waste Management or Uncle Sam.

Really, I think it’s pushing the lines of the “service” industry farther and farther because frankly, these are people that I wouldn’t normally even tip in the first place. Sure, I might give the girl who cuts my hair a few bucks more than normal or give my waiter 5% extra for the holidays, but if I normally wouldn’t give you a tip anyways?! And in the case of the needy garbage men, it’s even worse because we don’t even pay the bill for garbage collection – the HOA does. Why would I tip you for a service that I don’t even pay for myself?!

I guess at the end of the day, it just seems a little tacky for me that anyone who interacts with consumers seems to feel that tips should be warranted these days, and around the holidays when hands are extended at every turn all the more, a guy just gets tired of everyone asking him for extra money when he certainly isn’t collecting anything more himself. Wait a minute, that’s it! Maybe I should start asking for tips when people read my humor columns … I’ll just leave a small bag of rocks on their keyboard the next morning and I’m sure they’ll be happy to open up their wallets in the spirit of the season! Wouldn’t you?!