True Employment Tales

For about 4 months in the early 90's I sold cancer insurance. I cold called door to door in a few of the counties around east Tennessee. It was a pretty good insurance policy that I sold because it paid the cancer patient directly and if the policyholder never got cancer over the life of the policy, usually 20 years, they'd get all their premiums back.


One day while in Greene county, or as we refer to it here, the sweaty stinky arm pit of east Tennessee, I drove up to a trailer park. I got out of my car and I walked up to the first trailer and I knocked on the door. A woman answered the door and she asked what I wanted.

I told her who I was and what I was doing and she said, "Hang on." Then she shouted to someone else and pretty soon two other women appeared at her side. They were big beefy looking women who looked like the last class room they'd seen was their fourth grade homeroom.

The first woman made me tell them who I was and what I was doing there.

After I did so one of the large women said, "So you got a cancer policy for sale huh." I could see a light bulb go on above her head when she said, "You ought to go see my momma, she needs some of that cancer insurance, she's done eat up with cancer and she sure could use the money."


I thought for a second about explaining the way insurance worked but then I just closed my presentation book and I walked away.


The large woman shouted after me, "You want her address?"


I got in my car and drove off laughing to myself. I quit that job a month later.