I fell for a door-to-door salesman today. Okay, that doesn’t sound right. I didn’t fall for him, but I bought what he was selling – a stupid magazine subscription.

I don’t do this kind of thing. I’m usually very good at saying no. I can say no to the most sincere sounding police officer raising funds for abused children (I sound heartless here, but it’s true – I always say NO).

This guy had a good story – told me my landlord’s wife sent him over, tried to name drop (though I didn’t know the names he was dropping, which was probably intentional now that I think about it). He told me why he was raising money (a trip), where he planned to go, yada yada yada. Something involuntary in me said yes today and handed him a check for a stupid amount of money for a two-year magazine subscription. A MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTION!!!

He left and I then looked things up on the Internet that made my stomach flip. I emailed the school where he claimed he was from to see if they had a group going to where he said he was going. I looked at the image of him I had stored in my brain and asked myself carefully: does he really look like a college sophomore, or more like a 37-year-old man? OH MY GOSH HE LOOKED LIKE A 37 YEAR OLD MAN!!! I’VE BEEN HAD!!!

Craig came home about 10 minutes later and I spilled my story. He’s still shaking his head; he knows I don’t do this sort of thing. “It’s like the guy waved some weird magic wand in front of you and hypnotized you or something.” I KNOW.

Long story short, I put a stop payment on the check. And stop payments aren’t cheap, but the peace of mind I felt after doing it was worth it.

And I found my “no” again. Woe to the next guy to try to sell me anything…