The Sales Pitch
by Aaron Rushton

Stepping out of the shower, he cursed the phone and whoever was on the other end. Clichés become cliché for a reason. Shampoo was beginning to seep into his eyes, and the dog was eagerly lapping up as much of the water dripping from the master’s naked buttocks as possible. The cat was, of course, not as interested in the water as he was the new toys dangling in mid-air. Maybe they jingled.

“Hello? What? Oh, uhh, yeah, that’s me. No, no, not a bad time. I was, uhh, just… working out. Didn’t hear the phone the first few times. Right. No, no, I’ll hold. Sure.”

As Miles Davis softly drifted out of the telephone, the king surveyed his castle. There was an empty 750 of Wild Turkey Rare Breed lying on the couch. An open pizza box with a pile of crusts sat on the coffee table. The DVD menu still looping on the TV made him thankful that he’d had the foresight to arrange his living room with the screen hidden from any windows.

“Yeah, go ahead.

“Sure, I can do that.

“Today?

“That’s… that’s like, 40 minutes from now! I live 30 minutes away from the building, even if there’s no traffic!

“I can’t--! I-- Well, right… OK, but can’t somebody meet me there? Miller? Radford?

“Alright, alright… I’ll be there.”

His boxers and undershirt did the job his towel hadn’t had a chance to do. His pants stuck to his leg with the force that can only be summoned by wet no-press Dockers. The coat and tie managed to conceal the wet spots on his shirt, but the layers of stiff cotton combined with the residual heat from the shower didn’t help his antiperspirant any.

The group had seemed pleased with his presentation, and had given their secretary the go-ahead to fill out the necessary paperwork. It was only afterwards, at the urinal, that he noticed the position of his zipper and finally realized what the American Legion Ladies’ Auxiliary Post 1451 had found so funny about selling gravesite wreaths for Memorial Day.