It’s Just a Service I Provide
By Pete Schulte
For as long as he could remember, Les Archer had always gone door to door. He’d shoveled snow in winter, mowed lawns in summer, had early morning newspaper routes, sold Fuller brushes, vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, and magazine subscriptions. He been chased by angry dogs, chased by even angrier husbands, and been unceremoniously removed from properties by security guards. And now what? Les was a tried and true door to door man, but now there was less to go door to door about. Les was dejected. Had he nothing left to offer in this world? He took a good look in the mirror and used his old trick to regain his confidence. “Les is more,” he said to himself. “Les is more, Les is more, Les is more, LES IS MORE!” Composure restored, he headed back onto the street, back to what he knew best, back to door to door.
The first door he hit nobody was home, or pretended they weren’t home. The second door was dark and spooky so he passed on this one. The third was promising. A cottage home with a picket fence and a nice pelt of green grass. Les tipped up his fedora and knocked upon the door. Eventually a man answered. He was tall and wore glasses. His sweater was light gray. “Hello,” the man said. “What can I do for you?”
“No, sir. It’s what I can do for you. My name is Les Archer,” he said, extending his hand to the tall man in the gray sweater. “And I would like to provide you a service.”
“A service, huh. And what kind of service would that be?”
“But sir, first I would like to ask if there’s a lady of the house present?”
“Sally’s home. She certainly is.”
“That’s wonderful, sir,” said Les. “You see, in my experience, there are services some husbands extend to their wives enthusiastically, some do so grudgingly, while some do so not at all.”
“And what kind of services are you referring to, Mr. Archer?”
“Why I’m referring to the ancient practice of the foot rub. And you know, this is nothing sexual. Heavens no. This is merely therapeutic, just a service I provide. Are you a husband who provides such an undertaking, or would you rather out source to a professional?”
“Well, normally I’m a husband who regularly engages in this activity, but of late I did bang my thumb on the copy machine at work. So providing such a service myself who put me in a great deal of pain.”
“I am so sorry to hear of your injury,” said Les, “but I am pleased that my timing appears to be exact.”
“It’s like you knew,” said the man.
“Indeed it is.”
The tall man in the gray sweater called out to his wife, who was apparently upstairs. “Oh Sally, there’s a stranger at the door. He’d like to rub your feet.”
“Rub my feet?” answered Sally. “Say, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“No, Sally,” said the tall man. “It’s nothing untoward. It’s a foot massage, something therapeutic, a professional service he would provide.”
“A foot rub, huh? That doesn’t sound so bad. What’s he charge? I don’t want to be a chump.”
“Ten dollars a foot,” Les called up to her. “No more, no less. Everyday low prices are what I gladly offer.”
“Ten dollars a foot?” said Sally. “That’s a bargain where I come from. Send him on up, Mel. With those prices, I’ll have both feet done for sure.”
“Swell,” said Les, bounding up the stairs.
Les talked to Sally as he rubbed her feet with lotion. He told her which pressure points on the heel aided digestion, which stimulated the mind, and which, right along the arch, had a direct connection to the…
“Ohhhhhhhhh,” Sally moaned. “You really hit the spot that time. You do that again and I’m going to be singing opera.”
Twenty minutes later Sally called down to her husband. “Honey, guess what? Mr. Archer is offering fifty percent off a bikini wax for today only. Fifty percent off? Can you beat that?”
“Fifty percent off?” said Mel. “Hot dog!”
Les Archer was back in business, big time. Les is more, baby. Les is more!
The end.
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