Hustling Life Insurance
The boss is pleasant, even when things are bad. He’s a funny guy I met before I started work here. Hustling life insurance, he tried selling me a policy. If I remember, his dark suit created an almost disrespectful distance. He pitched whole-life policies that supposedly help you profit, no matter if you live long or die young. He pushed a quick deal, balancing cold probabilities and possibilities with warm references to otherworld supremacy. I’ll never forget his pitch. “If something should happen, God forbid,” he said, his words, precise with a measured touch of holiness.
Calling on a user-friendly spirit to forbid hypothetical death, just to soft sell a numerical American dream, didn’t sound like a sound policy. “Who pursues the creation after I die?” My question was purely diplomatic, a refusal to buy in.
Face deadpan, he kept talking about beneficiaries as if he was talking turkey. I spaced out; he lost a well-deserved sale. Of course, a carpenter young like I was, living on cigarette smoke and occasional doses of sawdust, made it easy to flaunt death, easy to say no to insurance, good deal or bad. Even if insurance offers a lifetime guarantee, a salesman can’t guarantee how long I’ll live. He shakes my hand, and walks away, muttering under his breath, “Crazy.” Must have been God-fearing, afflicted with self-doubt whenever he failed to close a deal. It turns out, he has what it takes. He’s now my boss.