About a month ago, there was a knock on our door around 9pm. Since we weren’t expecting any visitors that late at night, we decided to take a look from the window on the first floor before deciding what to do next. By then, an unfamiliar was on its way out of our compound.
Then two weeks later, around the same time, the same thing happened. My mother opened the door where she was greeted by a stranger and a car parked in our compound. There was another man heading towards our neighbour’s house. When asked why he knocked on our door, he replied that he had some textile products to sell to us.
I heard about people selling drinks and snacks door to door, especially in commercial areas such as Gadong. But to have something trying to sell us cloths at such late hours, especially when our house isn’t exactly near the main road is rather disconcerting.
It also seems growingly common to see people going into restaurants and selling packs of snacks to diners. Or worse, the elderly being dropped off at commercial areas to sell food outside a bank or restaurant.
I wonder if these “salesmen” are part of a syndicate, pulling at our heart’s strings as we are not used to seeing people this desperate to make a living. If not, perhaps all is not well with our economy and something needs to be done to fix it, or at least prevent door-to-door salesmen from entering residential areas in the middle of night.
Sleepless Sally
