Door-to-door salesmen

I have been awaiting a door-to-door salesman so that I can fulfil this D request and today,, as my boys: Jarvis and Ned battled over a small plastic goat, there was a soft rat-a-tat-tat on my plastic door. I opened it up to be greeted by a quick-speaking gentlemen who fired questions at me about my loft and the insulation of my walls which I felt obliged to answer. Cold callers don't get a single word out of me; high-street direct debit desirees get a swerving wide berth, but when you're on your doorstep, there's nowhere to run and a slammed door seems a little bit rude, so we discussed joists and stuff for a few minutes.

Once I'd shown myself to be thoroughly ignorant about the insulation of my house, he told me about a government law/initiative and I zoned in and out of attention before agreeing to have a bloke come and tell me whether my insulation in my loft meets government requirements or not. It's a free service, but there is obviously a desire to extract some cash from my bank balance somewhere along the line.

Immediately afterwards I felt like I'd just scored a complacent own goal in the final minute of a Cup Final - I'd failed the doorstep test and allowed myself to tricked by his official approach leading me to believe that he had something to do with government policy. I was caught off-guard because I had assumed he had come to read my electricity meter, but these are poor excuses. Once a Monday afternoon appointment had been arranged he lost all sense of formality and told me how his hands can't stop shaking because he's been riding around on the back of someone's bike all day gripping their saddle. I wondered whether my wife could provide him physio services and reverse the doorstep dynamic, but I was eager to end the embarrassing emasculating process and catch the start of Igglepiggle's exploits on In the Night Garden.

Whilst I have been beaten once by the door-to-door salesman, the ultimate victory is not his yet as cash has not been exchanged and I could quite easily be out when he revisits on Monday, or I could find out whether my loft has adequate insulation - transforming the loft into an extra bedroom is a potential long-term project, so the information could in fact prove useful and the initial root around is free.

I'm searching my memory to find if I have ever been made a mug of by other door-to-door salespersons. I once opened the door wearing just a towel to find that a girl that I used to go to Sixth Form College was at the door trying to sell me Seeboard's services - we pretended we had never seen each other before (in reality she probably had no recollection of me).

Someone once tried to give me some speakers, but that wasn't at the door; it was when I was walking along Western Road in Brighton. They were offering them to me free of charge out of the back of a van and were rather annoyed that I didn't want them, but I didn't want to carry speakers round with me on a night out and it seemed an extremely dodgy situation.

I once got given a pair of Y-fronts in a club - it sounds a bit dodgy, but it wasn't - the bloke was giving away pants willy-nilly (that is perhaps an unwise choice of vocabulary) and they bore a logo advertising something or other. How many people did he think would see my pants? I guess my washing line was overlooked by a few houses and once in fact I had a jumper stolen from my off of it. A couple of days after the item had gone missing I saw a girl who was friends with my next door neighbours wearing my jumper. I accused her of the theft and she denied it and then we were stuck in a bit of a stalemate. I couldn't wrestle it from and her refusal to acknowledge the theft meant that conversationally we were at a standstill and I had to walk away and let her walk the streets in my jumper. It was most frustrating.

I guess she sort of beat me, but no door-to-door salesperson has yet got the better of me. Shall I hide on Monday?