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by Rick Walton
I was taking a nap. So was my flu-struck 18-month old. A pounding shook the door, and with it the rest of the house. I
jerked awake and lurched to the door. Must be the landlord coming
for the rent, I thought.
As I opened the door, I heard my child begin to cry in his crib.
There stood two high school boys, a blond and a brunette, slicked up and stylish.
"Hi there, we're participating in this cool contest called the Here's Your Chance contest. Have you heard of it? It's really cool." The brunette raced through his carefully prepared spiel, all the time maintaining a firm, car salesman's grin.
"No, I..."
"All right!" said the brunette. "That means we're the first to talk to you. That's cool. See, we're trying to earn twenty thousand points. If we're the first to earn twenty thousand points, we get a great prize. Wouldn't that be neat?"
"I don't..."
"And if we do, we can go to our choice of Bermuda or France or Brazil. Have you ever been to Bermuda or France or Brazil?"
"What's that got to do..."
"Neither have we, and we're not going to. 'Cause when we win this contest we're going to trade in our tickets and go to Australia and go windsurfing. That would be far out, wouldn't it?"
"I've never..."
"So that's why we're here." He whipped out a laminated card and showed me the list of popular magazines printed on it. "You can really help us out if you'll just order one of these neat magazines. You read magazines don't you?"
"I prefer to..."
"Of course you do. This is a great opportunity. You can order one or you can order a dozen. Just look at all these cool magazines. You'll help us out won't you?"
"I don't buy..."
"How many can I mark you down for? Your neighbor two doors up ordered four. We really want to win this contest by tonight."
"I said I don't..."
"It's a great opportunity, and you'd really be doing us a big favor. This keeps us..."
They'd had their chance. I reached behind the door and pulled the switch. The two boys gasped as the ground opened beneath them and they fell into the darkness. The hole sealed itself again, cutting off the brunette's last futile attempt to get to Australia.
This had been the fourth time I'd had to use the hole this week.
"Make your spiel to the water purifier salesman," I said as I closed the door. Then I stuck a bottle in my kid's mouth and went back to my nap.
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