Door To Door

Customer Type #1: The Ones Who Listen To Their Kids

"Hello, ma'am, I'm Hudson Ellis - I'm a representative of the charity Man's Best Friend. You may have heard of us?"

The woman raises her eyebrows in a way that clearly indicates she has done no such thing. Hudson takes it as a cue to pull a leaflet out of his bag, holding out to her. “We help disabled dogs,” he explains, trying not to let his smile waver when she takes the leaflet but doesn't spare it a second glance.

“Dogs?”

“You know, when they’re missing a leg, or blind, or...”

“I know what a disabled dog is,” she rolls her eyes. At that precise moment, the small boy who had been hiding behind her legs pokes his head out to study Hudson curiously.

"Do we get a dog if we help you, mister?"

“Well, if your mom decides - ”

“ – Arthur, you know Daddy doesn’t like dogs.” The mother gives her son a pointed look. Hudson hesitates, then crouches down to Arthur's level.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “You don’t have to take a dog home. But you can still get to take care of one. It’s called sponsoring.”

“Soponorising?” Arthur repeats, brow furrowing. Hudson nods.

“Exactly. It means you can take care of a dog,” he taps the badge pinned to his sweater, which depicts a cartoon dog with three legs jumping to catch a Frisbee, and says I’ve sponsored a Man’s Best Friend! in block letters underneath, “and not have to take it home, so your dad doesn’t get upset. If your mom lets you, of course.”

Hudson pauses to glance up at the woman, whose gaze seems to have softened considerably. The boy follows suit, staring at his mother with wide, pleading eyes. “Please, Mommy,” he tugs at belt loops of her trousers. “Can we please soaparise a doggie?”

She hesitates, pursing her lips. “Alright,” she relents. Arthur lets out a whoop. “We’re gonna sponosrise a doggie!” he babbles, dancing around the hallway. “A doggie! Of our own!”

Hudson grins, this time with real enthusiasm. “All the information you’ll need is in the leaflet with you, ma’am,” he tells the woman, who’s fighting back a smile of her own at her son’s antics (Arthur is now attempting some kind of celebratory cartwheel). "In the meantime if I could just take some form of contact? An email or something would be great, yeah..." he holds out a pen and clipboard, smiling at her when she's done writing on the paper. "Thank you in advance for your help.”

“Thank you,” she nods, before stepping away from the doorway – a signal Hudson knows from experience means she’s done talking. He moves the other way, and the door swings shut. 

Hudson likes New York, he decides, plodding down the stairs. He likes how there are more pedestrians than taxis and more taxis than big four-by-four cars that take up half the road. 

"That's because the only people who own cars in New York are complete assholes," his friend Georgie had told him when he'd first pointed it out. "It's what we have a subway for, dumbass."

After one ride on the subway he already understands what she means - everyone takes it. Old men, young men, teenagers, middle schoolers, pregnant women - pretty much anyone you can think off will be sat on the underground train system, and Hudson finds it really cool. It's interesting to just people-watch on there - after all, these are the people he's going to be trying to convince to help disabled dogs for at least the next few years - he might as well try and remember any New Yorker quirks.