Selling Guns

FOUR YEARS AGO, when after thirty five years of teaching high school, college, and a few other students at various levels of attainment, I realized that enough truly is enough, and that I was more than ready for a permanent break for spending time in small rooms filled with sixteen to twenty two years olds, ready to spend a little time at my local senior center. The senior gig worked out well. I began by volunteering in the all important kitchen, then impressing so many muckity mucks with my work ethic and assiduous devotion to dish washing that they began paying me, a little. I have mixes emotions about the pay part; there is a certain freedom from authority and responsibility that comes with volunteer work. I even managed to strike a reasonable accommodation with the right wing evangelicals, the organization's dominant demographic, which I had never thought possible. Energetic, unsuited for leisurely retirement, i began to consider yet another career: that of senior citizen care giver. That would complete the circle, from one end of the age spectrum to the other. As the months went by, and I remained stuck and ensconced in the kitchen, generally enjoying it, members of the center inevitably began moving into assisted living facilities. It occurred to me that since I am in my early sixties, the youngest member, that if I remained long enough, It would to come to pass that all my friends would move on and die, a whole new generation of seniors of seniors would arrive to take their place, and I, poor I, would have to endure all the emotions inherent in that natural but difficult process. Increasingly, I found myself visiting dear friends in nursing homes, and having ambivalent feelings about it. Nursing homes are a racket. the care given is reasonably good nowadays, after decades of settled lawsuits surrounding the business, but profit margins are up, demand is greater than supply, and as is well known, the expense is prohibitive. My best friends, a couple in their early nineties, had to split up, he going to one home, she to another, he was too healthy to live in hers, she, too frail, according to standards established by the facilities themselves, to live in his. so, they use the phone, being unfamiliar with computers, and he commutes across town for visits. Together their hotel bill comes in at about fifteen grand per month. they have money and insurance, but still. To me this situation seems deplorable and tragic; they seem to be dealing with it rather well, except for her daily expressed desire to "just go back home and forget about it". Again, the assisted living facility industry for senior citizens is a racket, something must be done, and we the American people simple must start taking better care of each other. but, I digress. Now that I have had a good dose of senior health care, I am yet again considering one final career before I fade away (I'll be damned if I move into one of those impersonal warehouses); sales. The world's second oldest and highest paid profession, with the potential for setting my own schedule, and meeting people of all ages, including perhaps some attractive ones of the opposite sex too young for me. I don't need the money as much as I need to stimulation of meeting a challenge. The question is: selling what? I agree with the meme that if you're good you can sell anything, and that you don't sell the product, you sell yourself, so, the product is incidental. suffice to say that it should be something popular, in high demand, amenable to the market. Software, insurance, and tupperware bore me. Then came the "eureka' moment: Handguns! What more popular, sexy, or in demand item could one possibly insert into a hungry populace? Everybody needs one, so they say, and what with the mass murder business booming, when has self defense been in greater demand? Personally, I favor .22, 9mm, and .38 caliber semi-automatics, even though I don't like guns and believe strongly in gun control. Door to door, phone, internet, bring it. The only unresolved involve for whom to work, how and where to score the inventory, and a few legal technicalities. Plus, presumably one would be operating among the conservative Christian community, which is where the money is! Then too, this particular arena of sales might even serve to stimulate the senior center caregiving industry, which for me can always be a fall back option.