Sally Breslin: My Life

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Monday, August 18, 2025

FOR SOME REASON, DOOR-TO-DOOR SALESMEN LOVE MY NEIGHBORHOOD

I don’t know why, but my neighborhood seems to attract an unusually high number of door-to-door salesmen. One of my neighbors said it must be because they think everyone who lives in this area has lots of money to burn.

I’m still laughing.

Anyway, as a result, whenever someone knocks at my door, I immediately click off the TV and hide. I don’t care if I’m missing out on a visit from a long-lost friend who’s back in town and wants to surprise me, or that I might be ignoring representatives from some big cash-giveaway I entered, here to tell me I've won $100,000. I refuse to answer the door unless I know in advance who’s out there.

I blame it on the horror stories my neighbors frequently share on Facebook. Tales of victim-seeking, suit-wearing young salesmen zooming around on Segways and then refusing to take no for an answer when the unsuspecting person who answers the door refuses to buy their products, make me less than eager to deal with any of them.

Also, one particular pest-control company, according to my neighbors, is famous for its door-to-door salesmen who are so pushy, they either will use scare tactics (e.g. “See that lone ant walking up your driveway? I guarantee it comes from a colony of about 750,000 more that will swarm your house and chew on all of the beams until your walls collapse!”) or they will try everything short of tossing a handful of live cockroaches into your house to force you to sign a contract with their company.

It reminds me of this Fuller Brush salesman who often came to our house in Manchester when I was a kid. Whenever my mother said, “no thank you,” to him and tried to shut the door, he’d stick his foot in it to stop her. It’s no wonder the guy’s shoes had so many dents and scuffs on them.

As careful as I am about avoiding salesmen, however, a few weeks ago I was caught totally off guard and was forced to deal with one.

I was walking up my driveway to get my mail and had nearly reached the road when a truck suddenly pulled in and nearly ran me over. A guy who looked about 25, rolled down the window and greeted me.

The first thing I noticed was his smile. I honestly can say I’ve never seen one that was more perfect – and that’s saying a lot because I used to work for a dentist. My first impression was that even though I had no idea what he was selling, I figured his boss had chosen him to be in sales solely because with that smile, he probably could sell a Beef-of-the-Month membership to a vegan.

“I just finished paving a driveway up the road and have some leftover asphalt,” the guy said. “So if you’re interested in having yours done, I can give you a good deal.”

I couldn’t help it. I cracked up laughing. I’d heard that same line about a dozen times back when my house was being built and paving companies swarmed to it like bees to honey.

“Leftover asphalt, eh?” I repeated. “I’d say you’d need at least a few full truckloads for this one.”

He stretched his neck to look at the length of my driveway, but my house isn’t even visible from the road. “How long is your driveway anyway?” he asked.

“About a quarter of a mile.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Oh.”

He picked up his phone and punched something into it, then said, with a completely straight face, “The estimate comes to about $55,000.” He then laughed and added, “Will that be cash or check?”

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m about $54,975 short at the moment. Besides that, you didn't happen to notice my driveway’s already paved?”

He smiled. “Yeah, and although I hate to admit it, it still looks in decent shape. But maybe we could seal it for you for around $6,000?”

That smile of his nearly was enough to melt me into signing the paperwork. Most sales people have what my dad used to refer to as "constipated smiles," but this guy's looked totally warm and natural. I nearly told him he was wasting his time peddling asphalt in a small town – that he could be earning millions doing toothpaste commercials, but I kept silent …mainly because I didn’t want him to think I was some lonely old lady who was trying to hit on him.

Fortunately, other than him, I haven’t had to deal with any other door-to-door sales people, pushy or otherwise, due to my refusal to answer my door. But I guess I’m in the minority around here because just yesterday one of my neighbors posted a photo of a sign she’s threatening to hang on her door.

I think it might be fun to hang something similar on my door, too.

However, I would add at the bottom that it doesn’t apply to the guy with the asphalt.

I'd be okay with him knocking on my door...and then just standing there for a few minutes...smiling.

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Monday, August 11, 2025

SOMETIMES YOU REALLY CAN'T SEE THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES

Well, after years of being surrounded by nothing but woods, the trees on the east side of my land have been coming down at a rapid clip and I’m able to see daylight through them.

Yep. Someone finally is building a house next to mine on that side.

I’m experiencing mixed emotions about it. Part of me will miss all of the privacy I’ve had these past 16 years – privacy that allowed me to wear my pajamas while watering my lawn. But another part of me is finding some comfort in the fact that if, while I’m outside in the aforementioned pajamas, an angry bear decides to attack me, my screams finally might be heard by someone…other than more angry bears.

Watching the land next to mine being cleared transports me back to the time when my own land was undergoing the same treatment.

How well I still remember it…and not very fondly.

My husband and I had purchased a pristine, eight-acre parcel of land, rich with every tree imaginable, from white birch to giant redwoods (well, maybe some really big oaks). Wildflowers dotted the open areas, surrounded by blueberry bushes and lacelike ferns. I half expected to see Julie Andrews come dancing across the property, singing excerpts from "The Sound of Music".

But then the construction (more like destruction), began.

During the entire process, it became increasingly difficult for me to keep reminding myself that what resembled the target of a giant meteorite storm was going to someday become my dream house.

Each day, more and more trees disappeared, and in their place appeared huge, uprooted stumps lying on their sides. They looked like big, dirt-covered octopus carcasses. Walking past them was, well, pretty creepy, especially around sunset. And I constantly imagined the beady little eyes of all the creatures that previously had lived in those trees, glaring at me and plotting my slow and painful demise because I was responsible for destroying their happy homes.

The driveway I'd envisioned leading up to the doorstep of our future home was made of smooth gravel, solidly packed and lined with green grass and flowers on both sides. But my vision wasn’t easy to keep when the driveway actually resembled a roller-coaster track covered with big chunks of jagged gray rocks. And lining each side of it were assorted limbs, branches, piles of brush, dug-up boulders and enough logs to build a frontier fort.

In the clearing next to where the house eventually was supposed to stand were holes of all sizes and depths, where rocks and stumps had been removed. Whenever it rained, they quickly filled up with water and looked like rows of shallow puddles.

Unfortunately I ended up with wet underwear that proved those puddles weren’t nearly as shallow as they looked.

Near the center of the land, a pile of debris grew until it was about the size of Disney’s Space Mountain. I became concerned it should have a blinking light on top to warn low-flying aircraft. When I mentioned it to my contractor, however, he told me not to worry. He said he'd get a burning permit and turn the mountain of debris into a mound of ash in no time flat.

At the time, I remember thinking the eruption of Mount St. Helens probably had produced less ash than that pile of debris was going to produce. I also feared that when he did set it on fire, the blaze would be so bright, alien life forms would think it was a signal from Earth. And it would generate so much heat, all of the people who lived within a mile of our land would be able to roast marshmallows while still standing on their porches.

Another bad thing about clearing the land was the mud. The soil at our land, we soon discovered, was mostly clay – wet, heavy, sticky clay. If we were building something like an adobe hut, we’d have been all set. Instead, we seemed to be building adobe sneakers…while the dogs clomped around on clay-covered paws.

If worse came to worse, I figured I always could take up pottery-making.

When the contractor informed us the foundation hole had been dug, my husband and I, eager to see the site of our future basement, rushed up to the land.

What we saw looked like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, complete with two feet of water in the bottom. Before we knew it, one of our dogs found the ramp leading down into the hole and took a swan dive off it, then happily splashed around in the clay-filled water.

She emerged looking as if she'd been starched.

The next day, there was even more water in the foundation hole. Seeing that I’d planned to use the basement solely for storage, visions of my vintage Barbie dolls doing the dead-man's float and my teddy bears absorbing water until they swelled up to the size of real grizzlies filled my mind.

"Don't worry about it," my contractor said (and seemed to say a little too often). "We'll pump out all of that water in no time at all."

Great, I'd thought. Maybe he could use it to put out the fire after he lit that gargantuan pile of debris.

So now, all I can say is I’m hoping the future house next to mine will be constructed with no problems.

But not too soon.

I want to continue to wear my pajamas out in the yard for as long as possible.

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Sunday, August 3, 2025

IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT TOMATO

For two months now, I have been craving a tomato. I’m not talking about just any tomato, I’m talking about one that’s so big, just one slice covers an entire slice of bread. And I want it to be so red and juicy, it looks as if it’s bleeding.

To me, nothing tastes better than toasted bread with either mayo or melted butter on it, topped with a thick slice of fresh-from-the-garden tomato, sprinkled with just a smidge of salt and pepper.

Simple? Yes. Delicious? Yesssss!

Ironically, when I was younger, my skin always would break out the day after I ate tomatoes. My mom told me it was because of the acid content in them, so for the sake of my complexion, I kept my distance from tomatoes for quite a few years.

But now that I’m old and my skin is as tough as leather (and you rarely see zits on a cow), I can eat a bushel of tomatoes and not break out.

However, my quest to find the perfect tomato thus far has been…well, nothing short of frustrating.

I’ve learned that those tomatoes still on the vine in the supermarket's produce department are deceiving. On the outside, they are bright red and perfectly shaped. On the inside, they are pale and hard with crunchy white centers.

And those orange-colored California-grown tomatoes make me wonder if the poor Californians ever have tasted a really great tomato. The last one I tried had seeds so big inside, I thought I’d mistakenly bought a miniature watermelon.

I still remember the summer back when my neighbor, who faithfully planted a vegetable garden every year, asked me if I wanted some tomatoes. I nearly pole-vaulted over his fence, I was so excited.

“I'm not sure why, but this year has been a bad year for them,” he explained. “I usually have more tomatoes than I know what to do with, but there are only a few really good ones that came up this season. Still, help yourself to them.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I walked through the rows in his garden and carefully selected two tomatoes – the biggest, ripest ones I could find. I also spotted a few other contenders, but not wanting to appear greedy, I left them there.

That night, I eagerly sliced into one of the tomatoes and made a tomato sandwich. One bite and I was in heaven.

“I haven’t heard you ‘mmmm’ that much since the night you went off your low-carb diet and ate an entire strawberry-cheesecake,” my husband, a confirmed tomato-hater (unless the tomato has been transformed into pizza sauce), said.

“These tomatoes are just so amazing!” My words sounded muffled because I’d stuffed an additional tomato slice into my mouth. “I’m now regretting I didn’t take a few more.”

“Well,” my husband joked, “it’s dark out now, so you could always sneak over there and pick some. He'll probably think it was just some hungry animal that took them.”

I laughed, but deep inside I seriously was considering the idea. The only problem was I wouldn’t be able to see the mesh-wire fence around the garden in the dark, and using a flashlight might blow my cover because I was pretty sure hungry animals weren't in the habit of carrying flashlights when foraging. Visions of my neighbor finding me impaled on one of his metal fenceposts in the morning finally, although reluctantly, forced me to nix the idea.

The next day, thanks to my neighbor, I craved more tomatoes...to the point of distraction. So I drove to an open-air market, where I thought I’d finally struck gold. Not only were the tomatoes there bright red, they were huge, like small cantaloupes. In fact, they were so huge, the two of them I bought cost me the equivalent of a nice lunch at a restaurant.

I didn’t care about the price, though. I figured they were worth 10 times that amount if either one of them turned out to be my dream tomato.

But when I got home and sliced them, I was crushed to discover they were distinctly un-juicy inside with a strange kind of pale, sinewy, road-map-like appearance.

So I finally gave up.

A year later, however, there seemed to be a glimmer of hope. I was out in the yard when my neighbor came over to once again ask me if I wanted some tomatoes from his garden.

My heartbeat quickened and my mouth began to water as I thought back to those two tomatoes he'd allowed me to pick the year before. I silently prayed he’d grown a much larger crop of them this time so maybe I could have four, or even five. And even better, they were free!

I just about knocked him over as I made a beeline for his tomato patch, when he suddenly added, “Yeah, I have a nice batch of cherry tomatoes this year – more than I can ever use. So take all you want.”

I stopped dead. Cherry tomatoes? Those tiny, marble-sized tomatoes that would take about 125 to make a decent sandwich?

“Don’t you have any of those yummy big ones like you gave me last year?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t even bother after last year’s disappointing crop. Even the cucumbers back then came out looking like golf balls. It was weird. So I cut way back this year, to give the soil some rest, thinking I might have depleted it of nutrients or something.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I said, sighing, my disappointment obvious. “But cherry tomatoes just aren’t big enough for me.”

Unfortunately I'll never know if he succeeded in growing another crop of the delicious big tomatoes after that because we moved away.

When I recently told one of my friends about my current quest for the perfect tomato, he suggested I grow my own. I laughed. I have such a black thumb, I can’t even grow mold on stale bread. All I have to do is stare at a plant and it shrivels up in terror and drops dead. I’d be all but guaranteed to grow a crop of tomatoes that look like raisins…not that the plants ever would get that far anyway. One inch tall is a record for me, no matter what I've tried to grow.

But I’m not giving up. I will find a big, red, juicy native-grown tomato before the season is over, even if I have to rent a deer costume and sneak into people’s gardens.

So if you look out of your window and happen to see a strange-looking deer standing upright in your garden and holding an armload of tomatoes…don’t shoot.

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