healthy lawn analysis failure

I was home eating lunch on Monday when the doorbell rang. A good rule of thumb is that if the doorbell rings in the middle of the day and you are not expecting anyone, you probably don't want whatever the doorbell ringer is selling. But I answered the door, and there stood Evan from TruGreen (I guess they dropped the "ChemLawn" in some recent rebranding effort since "Chem" doesn't sell things the way it used to).



Evan: Good afternoon. I was just in your neighborhood treating the two houses across the street from you. I went ahead and performed a complimentary Healthy Lawn Analysis on your yard while I was here and noticed that you have widespread weed growth. I was wondering what you plan to do about that this spring?

{I look at Evan to determine whether he is joking and/or posing a rhetorical question and conclude that (1) he is dead serious and (2) he expects me to answer.}

Cathy: Honestly? I plan to complain to my husband about our widespread weed growth and tell him that we really ought to do something about that.
Evan: Well, we can customize a plan to meet your lawn's needs and eliminate much of that weed growth while helping the turf thicken up nicely, and also protecting it against lawn-feeding insects. . .
Cathy: Wow, that sounds incredible! If you leave me your flyer I will talk it over with my husband and get back with you as soon as we are ready to attack that weed growth.

Thankfully, Evan was not nearly as tenacious as those AT&T guys and was happy to leave his sales pitch at that. I expect he'll be back ringing our doorbell sometime in April 2013, when we will almost certainly still have widespread weed growth.