You look like a young go-getter

I grow weary of random people striking up obviously forced conversations with me at Barnes & Noble or a department store. Occasionally, it's the supermarket, but I swear, I must excrete some pheromone that attracts people trying to get me involved in their "exciting new business ventures".

Usually they start talking to me about my car if they happen to catch me in the parking lot, or the book I'm looking at if I am in the book store. It's gotten to where if I go to Target I have my iPod buds in my ears while I shop, because Target has earned repeat offender status. But the leeches are undeterred, as recently one guy actually waved me down to ask me about my iPod as the opener. Well played, you maxipad.

I have tried being curt with them. I have tried being nice and playing dumb. I have tried everything short of going nuclear and these people shrug it off. These lampreys are beyond embarrassment. They always eventually get to the point where they tell me I look like the kind of person who could be a real asset to their new business... helping companies get on the internet, or selling discount non-perishables, or organic supplements.

Usually I look like the farthest thing from a high potential candidate. Anyone who knows me knows that I roll out in jeans and a T-shirt. It has been my uniform forever. Often on the weekends my hands will be covered in oil because I have been working on my muscle car. They still come. Sure, occasionally they will get me on my lunch hour, which is a completely different paradigm because I wear a suit and tie to work everyday, but this has been the exception. I have discerned no pattern other than that I must walk around with an expression on my face that says "gullible moron".

I decided that I would absolutely freak out at them next time. Maybe push them, or idunno, wipe a booger on them or something. Yell really loud and cause a scene. Call them lower than meter-maids, telemarketers, and the tow-truck guys who troll apartment complexes looking to scurry off with college students' cars. But so far I haven't done it because the two who have gotten to me since had sheilds. One was actually at work, and a woman, so no-go on that one. The other had his 10 year old daughter with him at Target (this was the iPod guy), and I couldn't immasculate the weasel in front of his child. It reminded me of the book Blackhawk Down, when the heathen Somali is firing (seated, and in the open) at U.S. troops with his kids standing around him or on his lap.

I am going to find other people with the same problem, and raise enough money to get a phone line with voicemail. The outgoing message will say: "I gave you this number to get you the heck away from me so I could finish looking for "Red Dawn" or "Iron Eagle" on DVD. The name I gave you, Chim Richalds, was not real. All of the subterfuge is because you are an imbecile not worthy of knowing my name, and with whom I certainly do not wish to discuss your pyramid scheme. Good luck frantically finding other suckers who, like yourself, can somehow be convinced that a guy with a five dollar haircut holds the key to wealth and fame, and is willing to share it with random people at Walmart. Tell them about your boss who drives an Italian car or lives at the beach. That one always impresses."