They’re Not Scouting For Trouble

I am an adult leader for Boy Scouts. Every year, we knock on doors in the neighborhoods surrounding the church building where we meet to pitch our flag fundraiser. Homeowners pay us a fee and we put up flags in their yards during several holidays throughout the year, and then we remove the flags and store them until the next holiday.

We put flyers on doors the week before and then the boys go out — in pairs accompanied by an adult leader — on Saturday mornings starting at 10:00 am. The boys are instructed to ring the doorbell and ask to sign people up. If no one answers, they leave another flyer on the door and move on to the next house.

I am in charge of the fundraiser, so my name and phone number are on the flyers in case of questions. I get a call from a number I don’t recognize at about 10:45 am on Saturday.

Me: “Hello?”

Caller: *Male voice, gruffly* “I have a question for you.”

Me: “Yes?”

Caller: “Why would I be interested in your fundraiser today if I wasn’t interested on Wednesday?”

Me: “I don’t understand.”

Caller: *Volume increasing* “You left a flyer on my door on Wednesday and I threw it away, but then you came again and rang my doorbell and left me another flyer today.”

Me: “Well, the first flyer was meant to give a short explanation of the fundraiser and to let people know we would be coming to sign people up this morni—”

Caller: *Cutting me off* “You came too early!”

Me: “Too early?”

Caller: “Yeah. You guys rang my doorbell and woke me up! Don’t you know that people like to sleep in on Saturdays?”

Me: “I’m sorry that the boys woke you up. We do purposefully wait to start ringing doorbells until ten because—”

Caller: *Cuts me off again* “That’s still too early! You woke me up! And you woke up my son, who’s sick and needs his sleep!”

I’m a little worried that the son has some kind of medical condition and we’ve caused a problem, so I pause.

Caller: “And I’m not the only one! I’m looking down the street at your boys and nobody is opening the door for them! Everybody’s asleep at this hour! I went out and told them to leave people alone because everybody is sleeping!”

Now I’m more concerned that he yelled at my boys, so I’m a little worked up.

Me: “I must ask you not to harass my boys! I assure you that plenty of people are awake and happy to talk to us at this hour. We’ve been doing this fundraiser for fifteen years and we’ve never had a complaint that this is too early.”

Caller: “What are you going to do for me?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Caller: “Your boys rang my doorbell and woke my son up! What are you going to do?”

Me: “I guess all I can do is apologize. I’m sorry. We certainly had no intention of waking anybody up or causing any problems. Honestly, though, we are probably not going to change our time next year on the basis of one complaint. Maybe you can give me your address for next year or you can put some indication on your door that you shouldn’t be disturbed if you—”

Caller: “But it’s too early! What do you think the police will have to say about this? Huh?”

Me: “If you want to talk to them, you know they can get in touch with me. But it sounds like we don’t have anything else to discuss. So once again, I’m sorry for waking up your son—”

Caller: “You woke me up, too!”

Me: “I’m sorry about that, too. Goodbye.”

He never told me his address. When the groups returned, I found out which one had had some dude come out and yell at them. They said they rang the doorbell, waited about fifteen seconds, and then left the flier.

They were on to the next house when they heard the car from the first house screech backward out of the garage, not perfectly straight, so it slammed right into the other car in the same driveway. The boys and adult leader stopped and stared, and then the man got out and started yelling at them — an adult plus a seventeen-year-old and an eleven-year-old — to leave people alone because people were sleeping. He then turned around and stormed into his house… leaving the cars.