Column: A knock on the door and a new vacuum

Since my never-ending senior year of college, I've had the opportunity to work for several different newspapers in various roles.

Each one of these jobs has been a valuable learning experience and a chance to add to my tool belt while at the same time making some lifelong friends. There have been some papers I've liked a lot more than the others, but I would not trade any of those experiences because I'm better because of them.

While most of my time since college has been spent at newspapers, I've dabbled in a few other things over the years, including time at a counseling center. At one point, I was a contract employee for BP America, writing stories about field automation, cold box repairs, residual recycling, an inlet compression project, and unplanned outages. This was way out of my wheelhouse, but my stories made sense, and the money was fantastic. I also worked construction on the addition of a gas plant and spent some time at a recycling yard, which was challenging work but probably the best sleep I've ever had.

Very early on in life, I dreamed of being the world's greatest play-by-play announcer. While some of my classmates were out riding their bikes, I studied Howard Cosell and, later, the legendary Wyoming announcer David Walsh, who was, in my opinion, the best to ever do it. When I got older, I learned I didn't have the voice for radio, so I transitioned to journalism.

At an early age, I also knew one job that I did not want under any circumstance.

In grade school, I remember us getting a knock on the door and a sharp-dressed man standing at our front door with nothing but a vacuum and a smile. This was in the 1980s, so we were probably a few decades removed from the heyday of door-to-door sales, but it wasn't that uncommon.

Usually, my mom and stepdad would pay no attention to someone like this and send them on their way, but this day was different. This well-dressed man came into the house and put on a performance that rivaled Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl. Within seconds of stepping into our home, he vacuumed almost everything. I think at one point, I looked over and saw that he was vacuuming our dog Taffy, who really did not seem to mind.

After the guy finished, some tense negotiations seemed to last forever. After being told no a few times, the relentless salesperson continued to barter, and we finally ended up with this ridiculous brown Rainbow water-based vacuum that was the bane of my existence until I finished high school. Watching those negotiations that day, I thought that being a door-to-door salesperson was definitely not something I wanted to do for a living. I couldn't imagine how many no's or get the hell of my property he received that day before finally getting that yes, and even at a young age, I was sure I couldn't live with that kind of pressure.

A few years later, I entered junior high and was still scraping an awful goop out of the vacuum's water canister weekly. On one memorable day in seventh grade, a company came in for the annual school magazine drive.

It was a wild assembly as they wheeled out all the fantastic prizes you could win, and there was even a robot. A freaking robot. At first, I was excited about the opportunity to win some amazing swag, but I quickly realized this would mean I'd have to do the one thing I never wanted to do: door-to-door sales.

Wanting to be the first person in the "tree streets" to bother my neighbors, I spent an afternoon knocking on doors the entire time with a gigantic pit in my stomach. I did not want to be doing this, but I almost felt some weird pressure to make sure the seventh grade won the overall prize, which was probably just four pizzas for the entire class of 200 plus.

I'd like to forget that late afternoon and early evening. For every sale I made, some angry person would point to their "no soliciting" sign and give me a mouthful. I didn't know what soliciting was at that age, but I quickly learned.

Even worse than the people who would yell were those who were a little too friendly.

Several people invited me to their table or couch and offered me food, which, looking back, was probably not the best thing to do when a 12-year-old knocks on your door.

One of the worst parts of the experience was the smells coming from people's houses. I don't know what people were doing, but it did not smell right. I know for sure my house didn't smell like that because we had a vacuum that could probably rip the paint off walls and leave no dirt behind.

At the end of the day, I sold about ten magazines but didn't even think about going out the next day or the next two years when the same company peacocked into the school with their stupid robot.

That was the end of my door-to-door sales, and I'm thankful for that. I'm also grateful my mom got rid of that stupid vacuum.