Wreath on the Way!

Last night I was in the basement playing with Allan and I heard the doorbell ring.  I was confused because this is not a typical occurence and it had already been rang once that day by on of the city engineers working on our street construction.  I could see a man standing out on the sidewalk leading to the house.  Kind of weird.  I understood when I went to the door, however.  The main door was open and through the screen I could see a brown uniform shirt and a skinny little arm.  It was a boy scout!  The man on the sidewalk was his dad.  He was so shy!  He said something along the lines of HImynameisstuart...mumblemumble...troop123mumblemuble...then he held up a sheet with various Christmas wreaths and garlands.  It is time for the traditional boy scout wreath sale!  I haven't been asked since I have had my own residence, apartments or house.  Kids in my hometown used to sell wreaths but I had kind of forgotten about it.  The dad said they lived one block over from our street and Stuart said he went to the middle school nearbye (middle school?  I would have guessed 5th grade! Poor little guy!)  I caved right away and bought one (of course it's not here yet...it will be delivered in November).  I caved because I love Christmas decorations.  Also, I know that Justin was a boy scout member as a child and would probably like to give back.  I wanted to reward Stuart (yes, his name was Stuart!  He was skinny and had red hair!) for stepping outside of his shell and selling something to a stranger.  I have been through many school and organization fundraisers and I was even nervous asking people I knew to buy my goods (although we never sold anything as appealing as wreaths...the worst was when my basketball team sold overpriced bath products and lotions and when they arrived the bottles were so small I was embarassed to deliver them!  The best was the "Band Candy" aka World's Finest Chocolate that we sold as students in the music program.  People actually wanted that stuff.  I wish I had some Mint Meltaways right now!) so I was impressed that he would sell to someone he didn't know.  I also liked that the dad stood back and let Stuart sell all on his own while supervising from a safe distance instead of making it easy for him and just taking the order form to work with him and doing the work himself.  He even let Stuart come into my house on his own so I could write a check and fill out the form (I understand that parents are overprotective these days and many might now allow this).  I chose a 22 inch wreath for $21.00 and when I filled out the form I saw that he had been to my neigbor's house and he had bought an 18 incher!  I knew he was working in the garage so after the salesman left I went over and teased him about how our wreath was going to be bigger! 

I understand that scouts, both girls and boys, are deviating from the door to door tradition because of unsafe neigborhoods and overprotective parents.  This is why the girl scouts are always selling cookies from tables in front of grocery stores.  I'm glad I live in a neigborhood where people still feel safe letting thier kids ring doorbells and talk to people with the intent of spreading Christmas cheer through fundraising efforts!