Fuller Brush Man!

            I love pets. On my first birthday, Dad brought home a toy fox terrier mix. We named her Penny and she was my friend until she went to dog heaven while I was a freshman in college 17 years later. Donna and I found a cat when we had been married just a couple of weeks; we brought her home, named her Sooty, and have never been without at least one cat ever since. Right now, we have two. They are an important part of our family and we love them. So the events I am about to recount still haunt me to this day.

            Donna and I had been married less than a year and we were both undergrads at The Ohio State University. I looked for some kind of part-time job I could do to scratch up a little spending money. Answering a help wanted ad, I found myself taking a job as a Fuller Brush Man. After a couple hours of training, I went to work.

            For those of you who are of a different generation, door-to-door sales were commonplace when I was growing up and well into the 60's and early 70's.. We got our eggs, milk, and bread delivered to our homes. Salesmen called on housewives, selling everything from vacuum cleaners and pots and pans to encyclopedias. The Fuller Brush Man was a familiar figure, who came to the door to sell brushes (of course), brooms, and other grooming and household cleaning supplies.

            My assigned territory was in Clintonville. We were paid solely on commission – 15% of our sales. Carrying my 26 pound sample case, I walked from door to door for a few hours a couple afternoons a week when I didn't have class. I would walk up to a door, knock (we were trained not to use the doorbell), and, when the woman of the house came to the door, I would say "Fuller Brush Man" and hand her the free item we were giving away at that time, usually a vegetable brush, letter opener, or similar "door opener." About half of the time, I was invited into the house, to open my sample case and display the "featured products" of the month. If I got an order, I would deliver the merchandise the next week and collect the amount due.

            How times have changed. Today, very few people would so casually let a stranger into their home. And, as women have entered the work force in the last 40 years, most homes are empty in the afternoons. Of course, "big box" stores and online shopping drove the very last nails in the coffin of door-to-door sales.

            But, back in 1966, I was able to earn a modest but useful amount selling. The biggest day I ever had, I was walking up Indianola Avenue past a veterinary clinic, when a woman in a lab coat came running out, hollering, "Are you the Fuller Brush Man?" "Yes," I responded. She went on, "We have been looking for you. We need push brooms for the kennels. Can we order six?"

            Six push brooms! One of the highest priced items in the Fuller line! I wrote up the order and turned it in at the office. That week I got the biggest commission check ever. I think it was about $20.00, no small sum at the time.

            But, I had no idea that my last day as a Fuller Brush Man was fast approaching. That horrible day I knocked on the door of the large house on East North Broadway. A woman answered it, and invited me in, sample case in hand, almost before I got my greeting out. As I stepped into her front hall, a dark blur of fur shot toward me. Her dog, a spaniel sized long-hair, attacked, snarling and baring his teeth. Instinct seized me and I swung the sample case, slamming it into the side of the beast's head.

            My attacker fell over, its legs churning wildly, its eyes rolling back in its head. My hostess screamed, "You killed my dog! You killed my dog!!" "Lady," I replied, "not before he tried to rip off my leg!" I fled the house, found where I had parked my 1959 Volkswagen bug, drove directly to the Fuller office, turned in my sample case. "I quit!" were my last words as a Fuller Brush Man.

            I have thought about that poor dog many times. I sincerely hope that it recovered from my sample case assault. I try to convince myself that I was acting in self-defense and really had no other choice. But, I still feel pretty bad about the whole thing.