There’s nothing I hate more than those attention-hungry leeches equipped with a clip board and a handsome smile ready to jump out at you the second you make eye contact with them. You know the people I’m talking about, right? They usually hide behind bushes at your local Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, wear a khaki or lime green apron, and are more often than not super good looking? I’m speaking of the ever annoying advertisers, trying to sell you a grocery delivery service, or collect data for a recipe app or get you a free haircut? To be honest, I don’t really know what they are trying to sell—because I’ve never spoken to them. But they ALWAYS try to stop me. They’ll try to reel me in with a phrase like, “Can I ask you a question, how do YOU cook?”

I will never have enough time to stop to talk to them. Usually, my trips to Trader Joe’s are squished between a commute from work and dinner. I’m ravenous and have the grocery list categorized by isles for efficiency. The only thing I have time for is the predictably 25-minute- long checkout line, which I don’t really have time for either—but I make up for by answering emails on my phone. 

I do however, often consider going up to them and asking them to give me the contact information of their Business Developing team. I seriously need to talk to the marketing professional who thought it was a good idea to harass innocent Trader Joe’s customers as they are trying to purchase their favorite frozen-isle meals expediently. What makes you think that I want to talk to you?!?!?!? You are literally standing in the way of a very specific mission-oriented trip that has nothing to do with speaking to strangers about how often I get my hair cut.

Has this marketing team ever thought about negative associations? If I were ever verbally molested (yes, I’m using strong terms but I am trying to get a point across) by a person standing in the way of me and my Peppermint Joe Joe’s Ice Cream trying to sell me X product, the next time I came across X product, I would immediately be turned off by it. Like that one Chris Evans movie where he can’t eat Captain Crunch cereal because when his mom left him as a kid, she left the goodbye note pasted onto the box of the delicious treat. (I really like Chris Evans ok? Despite all of the terrible projects he’s been involved in that now crowd my “Because You Watched ‘What’s Your Number’” on Netflix).

I’ve also considered yelling directly at them “Don’t come near me!!!!” or “Stay away you handsome devil!!” or sign to them in ASL that I can’t hear them. However, I’ve failed every time. I’m crippled and my raging anger transforms into the gentlest grandma and says “I’m so sorry, I’m in a rush!”

The moral of this story is that in New York and in this world sometimes you have to pick your battles. Should I scream at the man on the subway who keeps miss-swiping his MetroCard and causing delays or take a deep breath and file a complaint to the MTA for its outdated system once I get home? Do I send a strongly worded email to my grandma pleading her to stop forwarding me catholic prayer email chains or do I take a deep breath and defend my sister during the inevitable Christmas dinner attack? Every time I see a handsome man in a khaki and lime green apron, I want to chuck his clipboard against the pavement until it comes apart in a million little splinters. But every time, I just, don’t.