An Afternoon in Knife Selling with Psycho Sammy

“So, my nickname in high school was Psycho Sammy,” he practically yells into my left ear. 

“Oh really?” I respond with my eyes on the car clock; it’s 4 pm.

We’re sitting in his burning hot Honda Civic. The orange afternoon sun bakes the leather seat. The customer lives in a small house with a poorly attended flower garden complete with hideous green gnomes. Some of them even have their hands or ears broken clean off. 

Every house in this neighbourhood looks identical. These people pray for vacations, but all they can afford are staycations. We belong here; our product doesn’t. 

“How’d you find this customer?” I ask.

“Old friend of my dad’s. Heard she’s really lonely. Should be an easy score,” he says while checking his phone.

“Oh, okay.”

We sell luxury kitchen knives on behalf of Chopco. In training, they said it was the greatest product in the world. For the price we’re asking, it better be that and more. It’s only a mere sixteen hundred dollars (not including sales tax) for a set of eight different knives and some minor bonuses. I’m here with Psycho Sammy because I couldn’t sell anything to my family or friends’ parents like a good Chopco drone. They were too smart, but I made $17.50 just to read a script. Not too bad.

Why am I here? I just wanted some kind of income for the summer. I didn’t think it would be this soul-crushing. Beats flipping burgers all day, I suppose. Not many places would hire a high school graduate with no real job experience. Plus, a nine thousand dollar tuition fee for my first year of university looms over me like an acid rain cloud. I should get my own money now to help cover the student debt I’ll be drowning in sooner or later. Can’t have Mom bailing me out of trouble for the rest of my life. 

The overlord boss asked Psycho Sammy, AKA Samuel, to take me out and show me how it’s done because he’s good at this job. We’re a regular father and son out on a hunting trip. Two predators on the prowl. Except I’m seventeen, and he’s eighteen. Allegedly eighteen—he looks thirty.

“Do you go into your demos thinking that you’re going to sell the homemaker set?” he interrogates me like a cop.

“I go into my demos trying not to sweat in a way that’s visible to my customers, and I go into my demos thinking that I’m not going to start crying.”

He laughs way too hard. His neck looks like a stack of tires, with his several hairy chins bouncing when he talks. I can’t imagine wanting to buy a burger from this guy, let alone a sixteen-hundred-dollar kitchen knife set. Maybe he’ll become a picture of charisma when the customer texts us that she’s ready.

“Say it with me, Jesse! We are going to sell a homemaker!” 

“We are going to sell knives.”

“We are going to sell a homemaker!”

“We are going to sell a homemaker.”

His frustrated look disappears when his phone rings. It’s time. It’s time to sell knives. I slowly exit the passenger seat. His ginger-haired, 300-pound ass bolts out like a dog at the smell of dinner—a wolf at the scent of prey.

Our customer opens the door for us. She’s a small, old white woman wearing a blonde wig. She’s smiling, but it’s unmatched by the inhuman grin on Psycho Sammy’s sweaty face. I give a halfhearted wave. 

“Hello, Ms. Dancer! How are you?” chirps Psycho Sammy. 

“I’m good. How are you boys?” Ms. Dancer responds, her voice like warm apple cider. 

“We’re terrific!” blurts Psycho Sammy before I have a chance to say anything. “This is Jesse. He’s one of my favourite coworkers and good friends. He’s going to be watching the demo today. He’s very excited!” 

“Oh, he looks a bit like my grandson. How are you, Jesse?”

“I’m okay.”

Psycho Sammy laughs far too loud and never lets his plastic salesman smile go as we follow Ms. Dancer deeper into her home. Dusty pictures of her kids cover the walls—baseball games and graduations. A clean picture of her kissing Mr. Dancer, presumably, catches my eye. 

The caption reads, “Grand Canyon, 1973. With the love of my life. Forever and ever.” 

He’s got his hand on the small of her back. The photo was taken mid-laugh. The kind of kiss that ends movies because why would you want to see anything afterwards?

The house feels like it’s getting smaller the longer we stay. There are two rocking chairs in the living room facing the TV. They look like they’ve got stories to tell—Christmas mornings with the family and romantic movie nights. She sits on the one on the right. 

“If we could do this in the kitchen, that’d be great!” Psycho Sammy suggests. “Chopco knives belong in the kitchen, after all.” 

We move to the tiny kitchen. A real estate agent would say it’s cozy, not small. It looks ripped straight from IKEA’s “on a budget” section, except there’s dust everywhere. I carry a wooden chair to the corner to get a good view of the action. Psycho Sammy and Ms. Dancer sit on opposite sides of the kitchen table. He puts all the merchandise in the middle: a big wooden block holding all the knives. 

“Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to see us! Remember, we get paid just to show, so there’s absolutely no pressure to buy anything, but if you do buy something, you’ll be helping me get towards my goals!” Psycho Sammy explains in what he thinks is an indoor voice.

“No problem. I love having company,” she says in that same sugary tone.

“Great! So, I’m a student at the University of Waterloo, and I’ve been working with Chopco for two months to pay for tuition.”

“I see. That’s expensive. What are you studying, my dear?” 

“I’m doing a double major in business and marketing, and yes, it’s very expensive. Besides that, I’ve been planning a hiking trip in Nepal with my friends. Also, I really want to take my mom on a trip around Europe. It’s always been our dream since Dad passed away.”

“Aww, I’m sorry to hear that,” she says with pure sincerity. “What was it?”

“He died of leukemia.”

Rest in peace.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, dear,” she whispers.

“So, remember, there’s no pressure to buy because I get paid just to show, but if you do buy, you’d be greatly helping me out towards my goals.”

“Okay.”

“Great. So Ms. Dancer, do you cook because you need to, want to, or love to?”

“I would say because I need to.”

“Great, so you’re going to love Chopco. Chopco is the leading brand of kitchen knives with loyal customers all over the globe. Many of them have owned Chopco for over twenty-five years because of our quality and unique lifetime warranty. So, not only are they the greatest knives in the world, but they also last forever.”

“Interesting.”

Psycho Sammy takes a butcher knife out of the wooden block. The ceiling light bounces off its edge and right into my eye. Ms. Dancer seems entertained, though. 

“Wait until you see this baby cut through a melon!”

Before I know it, my attention falls to the clock behind them. The eternally grinning white guys in pinstripe suits who trained me acted like their umbilical cords were cut with these knives. I tried my best to tune out all that infomercial garbage, but it always worms its way through my ears and blackens my consciousness.

“Wait until you see this baby cut through a melon!”

“Do you ever have trouble spreading jams or jellies on toast?”

“The low cost of fifteen ninety-nine, not including sales tax.”

I wonder how much of this stuff I won’t be able to purge from my brain. In my restless dreams, I’ll see those knives. 

I look back at the clock. We’ve only been here for ten minutes! My demos never go past an hour. Maybe that’s why I’m not successful at manipulating people into buying knives. My body is shutting down. This is it. This is death. 

“Now, do you ever have trouble spreading jams or jellies on toast?” Psycho Sammy’s neon-soaked voice echoes from the void. 

“Sometimes.” 

“Great! That’s why we have our Spatula Spreader with our unique Double D Edge technology!”

I take it back. I’m sorry, death. This is much worse. 

“Now, you’d expect the price of the Homemaker +8 set to be at least double the value of competing brands because Chopco knives have double the quality, and we have our lifetime warranty. The Wusthoff knife set is two thousand one hundred sixty-nine dollars. The Homemaker +8 is, in fact, cheaper at the low cost of fifteen ninety-nine, not including sales tax. Now, if you buy today, I can throw in a cutting board and the beautiful wooden block for free. Ms. Dancer, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask you. Would you like to try out your homemaker today and get your free gifts?”

Here it is. Moment of truth. Please say yes, so I can go home. 

“Sixteen hundred? That’s not something I can do right now. Sorry.”

“I know it’s a lot to spend at once. That’s why many of our customers take advantage of our five-month, interest-free payment plan, which is just three twenty-three a month. How does that sound?”

I hold my breath. 

“Sorry, that’s still too much.”

“That’s perfectly alright. Let me show you our other sets,” Psycho Sammy says calmly. 

As Ms. Dancer watches Psycho Sammy cleanly cut up an apple with the air slicer knife, I stare at the clock. It seems to move slower and slower the longer I stare. My hair greys, and my back arches forward. I could quit, but I’m scared of having all that free time. I know I’ll waste it, but what am I doing right now? 

I need money, but there has to be some other way. I told my mom I hated this job, but she said to give it another chance. 

“It’s only your first day,” she insisted. “Stick with it.”

Telling Mom that I quit something because it was hard and boring would crush her. Lord knows I’ve done that too many times. She was so proud of me for managing to get my first job, too.

“Sorry, I can’t spend that much at the moment,” her soft voice breaks through.

“That’s okay. Let me show you some of our starter sets.”

Tick-tock, tick-tock. The only thing worse than doing this job is watching somebody else do this job.

“I’m so sorry, dear. That’s still too much.”

Ms. Dancer has got to have something better to do than listen to this. She could spend this time with her kids, travelling, or literally anything else.

“Can you do me a huge favour and pick your top five knives?” Psycho Sammy says, quickly losing his cool. “I’ll see if I can make you a deal.”

“I don’t know,” she mumbles with her eyes on the red wine stain on the floor.

“Come on,” Psycho Sammy says aggressively. “You’d be greatly helping me out towards my goals.”

How long have we even been here? Chopco knives are so sharp, they sliced my perception of time. I think this job is for a very specific kind of person—a very specific kind of pushy, manipulative scumbag. How can I live with myself knowing I’ve subjected people to this torture for only $17.50? 

“No. Look, I should’ve just told you over the phone,” she says, her voice breaking like glass. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago, and I can’t buy anything right now.”

The awkward silence in the room is so thick you’d need a Chopco butcher knife with the trademark Double D Edge to cut through.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Ms. Dancer. I completely understand,” Psycho Sammy says like a functional human being. 

“I wouldn’t have agreed to take your time if I didn’t know you get paid even if I didn’t buy.” 

“When you do beat your cancer, give me a call because I want to congratulate you personally.”

As she stands up with her eyes still on the floor, she says, “I will beat it. I look forward to that call. I have to be at the doctor’s office soon. Thank you for coming. I hope you sell to the next person.”

“Take care, ma’am,” I tell her as I stand up to leave. “I hope you recover soon.”

Psycho Sammy and I leave the house and walk back to his car in silence. He moves to turn on the engine, but he stops. 

“I think you did a pretty good job,” I affirm. 

“[REDACTED]!” he yells as he slams his huge pink fists on the steering wheel. “How do you take that? Cancer! Can’t a guy catch a break? Haven’t made a sale all week, man! This is so unfair!”

“Are you alright, Sammy? Sorry, Samuel?” I ask quietly, my hand reaching for the door handle just in case I’m his next victim. “And it’s only Tuesday.”

“Yeah, man. It’s just… of course, she has cancer!”

“I hope she’s okay.”

“Yeah, yeah, man. Let’s get out of here.”

The engine sputters to life, and we drive out of the quiet residential area. I’m so tired. I’m so done. 

“The boss told me I was going to show you how to make a sale today, so I’m taking you to my next demo. It’s in two hours. That’s fine, right?”

Crimson sunlight burns through my eyelids, and I’m sticking to the seat. This is it. The last straw. No. No more. 

“You know you can tell your boss something, Sammy,” I spit. 

“What’s that?” he asks.

“He can’t fire me.”

“Oh really? Why’s that, you little [REDACTED]?”

“He can’t fire me,” I take a dramatic pause and yell directly into his ear, “BECAUSE I [REDACTED] QUIT!” 

I have to take the bus home, which is Heaven compared to the Kentucky fried prison cell on wheels that is Psycho Sammy’s Honda Civic. Mom is chopping onions in the kitchen with a dollar store knife. She was too smart for my sales pitch. I’m so proud.

“How was work, Jesse?” she asks while stirring the pot. 

I answer, “Oh, I quit, Mom. It’s—” 

“You quit? How could you? Do you know what your generation’s problem is? You expect everything to be handed to you on a silver platter!” 

“But Mom, it’s so terrible!” 

“When I came to Canada, I worked awful jobs, but it made me strong. You will call your boss tomorrow to apologize and beg for your job back, or I will do it for you! Now, go to your room and think about how easy you have it!”

I heard her mumbling about my lazy generation all night long. There’s no way in Hell I’m going back to Chopco. There’s no way Mom could actually get me that job back—just an empty threat to motivate me.

Flipping burgers or washing cars all day are dream jobs compared to that nightmare. First thing tomorrow, I’m handing out my resume to every fast food joint at the mall. Forget money; I want to work hard to make Mom proud. 

A few days pass without a phone call back from any of those places. One morning, Mom tells me to get dressed and go out for a walk. I step out onto the front porch. My blood freezes. A Honda Civic is parked in our driveway. Click. Mom locks the door behind me. 

Psycho Sammy honks the horn twice, sticks his thick neck out the window, and yells to the whole neighbourhood, “Hey Jesse, we got a demo in a half hour! Get in!” 

This short story was brought to you by the Chopco Corporation. Use promo code: PSYCHOSAMMY2024 for 15% off your next purchase of Chopco. Terms and conditions apply.