Knock knock...

Apparently, people in this country still open their doors when they're not expecting anyone specific to be coming over. Because they still have door-to-door sales going on here. The other day, I get home from work and Scott tells me some guy showed up at our door, speaking German (natch), and so Scott did the whole, sorry, my German sucks thing...so this guy switches to sketchy English. (Note: People in positions of unimportance like police, medics, bank tellers, emergency-room staff, border control, and financial/tax advisers routinely can't speak enough English to help non-German-speaking losers like unto ourselves...yet telemarketers and door-to-door sales people speak the queen's bloody English well enough so that we're rarely able to use the tower-of-babel excuse for getting out of being targeted. Hmph.)

So, what's this guy selling? Peepholes. Yeah, peepholes. He has a wide variety of lovely models, ranging from basic hole-in-the-door types (ie, a peep*hole*) to fancy fish-angle lens 1-inch diameter styles, with fancy brass "safety" covers (which, of course, makes one wonder about how "safe" you'd be when you moved that cover to see who was at your door, right? In this, the country with the highest per-capita households with fully automatic rifles). Prices range from 99 bucks to up to 600...installation included.

Although, now that I think about it, if you're selling peepholes...door to door would be the best way. Note that Scott did look through our existing peephole before opening the door to this guy.

The next day, Scott was out and about and saw a whole window display of peepholes on sale. They were slightly cheaper...but didn't come with installation by your very own DtD salesman. I guess there's a sizeable niche market for peeping here. I can't imagine why - it's not like this is the most paranoid country on the planet or anything. It's good to have peepholes though, because they're helpful when you're spying on your neighbors who are breaking rules (Bad Ones, like trying to sneak some laundry in on a Sunday) and then you can get your old Swiss person jollies when you write tattle-tale letters to the landlord about it.

Other strange items that have whole stores of their own - stamps. Like rubber stamps. I have one at work, myself. You can't just put your signature on things, you also have to stamp it with your stamp. Some people's stamps are better than others. That's one of the ways you can tell who's Better here.