The Fuller Brush Man

In Tempe we had our last exposure to what was, even then, a dying breed: the door-to-door salesman. Not to be confused with the current-day waifs who try to sell you magazines, these were men (almost always) who spent all day every day going door to door (because his customer, "the lady of the house," was reliably home during the day) selling whatever a housewife might conceivably buy.

Our first experience was with an encyclopedia salesman--although I believe this one was a woman. In the privacy of our own home, she labored mightily to convince us that we needed to buy a beautiful leatherette-bound set of World Book encyclopedias so our 3-month-old baby wouldn't be intellectually deprived. "But, you say, this set will be five years old by the time you would let him look at the pictures? Not to worry. For a minimal annual fee, you can purchase a yearbook--a single volume that will include all the expanded knowledge that came up in the last year." Can you just see yourself looking up a subject in the encyclopedia--and then in the 10 yearbooks that follow, in case there's a new footnote?

Still, I was a child of twenty-one, and since I have a trivial mind, I found it very tempting--and let's not forget the powerful Guilt angle. But we restrained ourselves, and decided to buy one when the kid(s) were old enough to actually use it. I believe that was in 1987 (10 years later), and by the time Allison left high school, it was obsolete enough that we could let it go without a pang. A good investment, after all.

But this last door-to-door salesman--and he was a man--was quite a speciman. What did he look like? He was obese, black-haired, and swarthy. In my mind, he looks very much like the hotel detective in the movie "Topper," minus the hat and with an alcoholic complexion. He reeked of cigarette smoke; though I didn't let him in the house, the smell lingered in the living room for the rest of the day.

But he was a Fuller Brush man, and thus respectable. Fuller Brushes were highly regarded and were only sold door-to-door. I bought David's beautiful clothes brush from Fuller Brush--perhaps from this very salesman, on the doorstep. If I had the time and inclination, he would sit in my living room and pull samples from his case, either to demonstrate the quality of the goods, or to sell outright. He also had a catalog from which I could select, and he would deliver in a week. And take a personal check--he knew where I lived.

Now Fuller brushes are sold on the Internet, and David's beautiful clothes brush--a limited edition--is no longer available. There is still a clothesbrush, ordinary-looking and serviceable. But the Fuller Brush man is no longer comes door-to-door.