A Desperate Salesman's Encounter I am a traveling salesman and I had been on the road away from my wife and three teen aged kids for a week without much success. The economy has many of my clients backing off on purchases that I can normally count on. Usually I spent about a week on the road and the rest of the month in my office setting appointments and managing sales. That day I thought I had a $50,000 sale to a company that I had been working with for six years. At the last minute they told me that they were not going to place the order. I was crushed and mad, mad at the company, mad at the government, mad at the world and mad at myself. Mostly, I was worried. I had bills, lots of bills and I was looking at not being able to pay them. I had a mortgage payment of almost two thousand dollars due in three weeks and I only had sixteen hundred dollars in the bank and that had to buy food and everything else you have to spend to care for a family. It was only a little after two and I did not have any other appointments for the day. On my way back to my motel room I stopped at a bar that I came to. I had lunch consisting of three straight shots of cheap whisky and then stomped out of the bar. When I got back to my room, I sat in the chair just staring at the wall. I didn't bother to turn the TV on. The drapes were closed and I only had one lamp turned on. I was in a deep funk. My name is Jerry. I am a fifty year old white male. …but everything was about to change
