GUEST COLUMN: An unwanted and forceful salesman

Jennifer Arend, Guest Columnist Jennifer Arend, Guest Columnist You couldn't walk down Locust Walk last week without running into one of them. Perky people running around in bright green shirts, fighting bad breath. So they stand in your way as you hike to David Rittenhouse Laboratories, shoving mouthwash samples in your hands. Then there's the guy with the Bucks County Coffee, the MCI people screaming about their unbeatable rates and the born-again Christian that tried to save my soul. Then, imagine later that night, you receive a knock at the door of your dorm room, and it's the same mouthwash guy, forcing his breath-freshener in your face once again, and this time he's not taking "no" for an answer. In fact, when you try to politely decline his offer, he begins to push his way into your room? Sound ridiculous? What actually took place was not quite as bad, but it was real -- and scary to boot. Walking back to High Rise South last week, a young man approached me and asked me if I had a few minutes to help him "win a trip to Acapulco." On my way to do a million things better than helping this kid win a trip to Mexico, I shook my head and forgot about it. Later that night, I received a knock on my door. Although I usually look through the peephole -- a practice dating back to my prime years as a kindergartener -- I didn't bother this time. And there he was again. "Hey, now you must have time, right? You're watching The Simpsons? I can win a trip to Acapulco if you buy some of my magazines. You want to help me, right?" After pleading bankruptcy, saying I was in the middle of a 20-page paper and informing him that my food was getting cold, I just reverted to the simple: a firm, conclusive, "No!" "Oh, come on. You're not very nice, and they're really cheap. You won't know how cheap unless you look?" And he began to push the door open wider to shove his clipboard in my face. Now I was getting mad. This guy said I wasn't nice, and he looked like he was going to push his way into my room. That's when I got scared and barricaded the back of the door with my boot. "Well, fuck you. You're missing some great deals." So I slammed the door as he turned to knock on my neighbor's door. And then it hit me. WHAT WAS HE DOING IN THE HIGH RISES? In spite of failing my mother in her warnings about strangers, I had managed to do one intelligent thing during the encounter -- I had asked him casually if he went to Penn. He didn't, which meant that someone had to have signed him in as a guest. Unless? Panicked, I called the front desk, and demanded that someone come to my floor to find this guy, who was probably a trespasser. On my way downstairs to describe the guy, I ran into two girls doing the same thing -- selling magazines for a clearinghouse. And they didn't go to Penn either. After giving them a rather shoddy description (he was very nondescript, unfortunately), I decided to try to find the man myself, running from floor to floor. No luck. Rather flustered at this obvious breach in security, the Spectaguard downstairs kept repeating, "I don't know how they got in. I don't know." Hours later, the guard still hadn't found him. Although the police had been called earlier in the day for the same problem, when I reported him, they were "not available." Telling my mother about the incident was another ordeal. She used her oft-heard retort,"Well, you had better be careful, because, when your father and I are identifying your body in the morgue, he'll be yelling at me for letting you go to that school." Most of the time, I defend Penn, and tell her not to worry. But now I'm worried. For weeks now, I have been routinely "waived in" by Spectaguards and students either too lazy to swipe my card or too frustrated at having new cards repeatedly rejected. Admittedly condoning this negligence, I would go in, thankful for not having to dig my card out of the bottom of my backpack. Students on this campus are afraid enough about walking outside after dark without worrying about their safety once inside dorms and campus buildings. University Police and Spectaguards obviously can't be on every street corner and walkway within a mile radius of the school (although my parents would be all for that). But if they cannot control the basic security within campus buildings, I seriously question their effectiveness in preventing crime and trespassing. While I was not physically harmed or threatened, it could have easily happened, and there apparently were no police in the area to do anything about it. Interestingly enough, security has gotten a little tighter around HRS lately, and I haven't seen that particular Spectaguard on duty. Nevertheless, you won't see me opening my door anytime soon without looking through my peephole first.