Vultures of the Dead Sea

So, I'm walking through the mall.  Suddenly through the crowd an Israeli woman grabs my hand and pulls me over to a cosmetics stand: Dead Sea Salts or something like that.  While I clearly indicated my lack of interest in her product(s), she explained what a wonderful gift her nail polishing blocks would make for my wife/fiancee/girlfriend.  (Sorry, dear, not really a selling point!)  She filed and polished my nail with extraordinary speed.  I was shocked at how quickly she rattled off her sales pitch in heavily accented English.  The real wonder was the blur of her hands, which would have made Houdini quite proud.   In mere seconds she had shined my right thumbnail to a ridiculous lustre.  She explained that it will stay extremely shiny for many weeks, and without traditional nail polish.  For the low price of $29.95 the kit (filing/buffing/polishing block, cleaning cloth, and essential oil) could be a perfect gift for my wife/fiancee/girlfriend.   

[Aside: What is an essential oil and exactly when did this vogue come about?  If I haven't needed such an oil for the last 27 years, it seems a little excessive to call it "essential" now.  Yes, I realize the base of the word comes from "essence," but is still seems to create a double entendre that only serves a marketing team.]

Indeed, my nail was VERY shiny for about a month and a half.   Just great.

Since then, I have viewed the sales people at the the little stands in the mall to be something of a plague.   Not all of them, mind you.  The AT&T guy may ask "What cell phone service do you have?" as your walking past, or the gentleman at the perfume/cologne stand may look up from his laptop as you walk by to exclaim of their "Buy one-get one free offer"... all innocuous, really. The very worst are those individuals that find it appropriate to thrust scented pillows in your face, slick odoriferous lotions on your hands, or polish one of your fingernails to a ridiculous level of luminosity.  

I actually have a friend who would hide on the other side of me when walking past these boundary-less sales people.   There has to be a way to regain control of one's shopping experience.

THE SOLUTION:

When you are approaching one of these sales people, their advances can be halted with a couple of simple steps.   One of the following suggestions may be enough to stop them in their tracks.  The most persistent among them, however, may warrant the use of several (or all) of the following suggestions (listed in order of severity).

• Cough gently into your hands
• Sniffle and casually touch your nose while making brief eye-contact with the sales person
• Sneeze into your hands (for added efficacy, double over while sneezing)
• Relieve an itchy nose by running you nose along your arm (from wrist to elbow and back)
• "Adjust yourself" or scratch yourself in an "unmentionable area". (I've never needed to escalate to this level.  Usually a casual cough or sneeze does the trick and they target another innocent passerby.)

[DISCLAIMER:  I offer this advice free of charge.  The author accepts no responsibility for any individual using these methods.  Please be aware that bystanders may view these actions to be exemplary of poor hygiene, poor health, or poor taste.)