"Can I interest you in some street dirt?"

A strange man came to our door on Thursday.

It was about 6 pm or so. I was preparing to go for a run and the door buzzer rang. When Gwen opened the door, we were greeted by a middle-aged German man in either a cheap or overly wrinkled suit, possibly both. He was forty-something, pudgy, balding, and stood patiently at the foot of our set of four concrete stairs.

When he saw us behind the opened door, he smiled and started almost immediately yammering in German. He spoke fast and Gwen and I stood there and tried to do the awkward smile, open mouth, subtle hand motion "Sorry but we don't speak German" thing. When that failed, I finally managed to get an "Englisch bitte....ich nich sphreche deutch...." out.

He stopped, looked confused for a moment, and then set about deciding how he was going to get his message to us with the few words of English he knew.

To this day, it remains unclear what in the hell the man wanted.

Unlike most Germans, he didn't speak more than a few words of English, so instead of having any sort of conversation the three of us spent the next couple of moments huddled together trying to communicate in a hand-gesture based, mostly ineffective manner akin to Kevin Costner trying to communciate with the Indians in "Dances With Wolves".

First he pointed into our house. Then he pointed to the street. We had no idea what he was saying. Then he went to a knee, took his small note pad in one hand, showed it to us, and then dragged the pad across one of our concrete stairs so it would accumulate dirt. Turning the pad over, he pointed to the dirt, then pointed back to the street, then back into the house.

We were confused. "Dirt?" we asked.

He looked confused as well - clearly the word "dirt" didn't register with him. I asked him to say it "in Deutshche". He rattled off some more words, one of which was "Schmutz". OK, sounded like dirt.

And then he kept indicating the dirt, the street, and the house. Gwen and I had no idea what the hell it all meant.

"OK, so you want to check the house for something? Check it for...street dirt?"

He didn't understand, but when I gestured inside the house he nodded eagerly.

At this point I sort of feared a salesman. At the same time, I didn't think that door-to-door salesmen even existed in Germany. With the Germans' genuinie dislike for strangers, I couldn't imagine one having much success. What I could imagine was the horrible sneer of incredulous disdain that might form on the face of your typical German at the thought of being disturbed in the home by something so annoying as a salesman. I briefly shuddered at the thought of being on the business-end of one of those imaginary death sneers before re-focusing on the "Street Dirt" guy standing before me.

As my suspicion grew, I asked him point blankly if I had to buy something. I'm not sure how I conveyed this, but somehow I referenced money and asked with a disapproving look if this would cost us something. He seemed to get this and shook his head. My next question was the word, "Free?". He nodded. "Free" was a word he knew. I'm not sure that was a good sign.

Well, whatever he wanted to do, Gwen and I weren't really interested. So we stalled. I had all my running gear on, so I indicated to him that I was just about to go for a run and so this wouldn't be a good time. He paused, collected himself, and then asked "Tomorrow?"

Ugh. We thought it over. Not wanting to be mean to this guy, we stalled and than reluctantly nodded. "Tomorrow."

With that he starting haggling a time. We settled on five the next day and I made a mental note to not be home a lick before five-thirty. I didn't reallly want to deal with this guy again, and I had no interest in seeing if our house was full of "street dirt" or whatever he wanted. I could tell Gwen felt the same way.

And with that the guy seemed satisfied, said good-bye, and turned to leave. We shut the door and discussed what had happened for a moment. We agreed neither of us had any idea what in the hell the guy wanted. He didn't seem like one of the twice-yearly chimney sweep guys who come by. (In Germany they send uniformed chimney-sweeps to your house twice a year to inspect the chimney. I have no idea why, but I've been through it a few times. They always send two guys, and they always have uniforms on and they usually speak English, at least in my experience.) We laughed at the concept of "Street Dirt". Then I went back to the door to go for my run.

As I walked down the steps and prepped my watch to start, the guy was still around, just outside our gate. He had some sort of rolling suitcase with him that wasn't visible when we initially talked to him. Another devious sign. Nodding politely, I smiled at him and then started running the other way (beginning my jog). I made a mental note to see if he just went to the next house or not, but I rounded the corner before he was done fiddling with his case in front of our place.

I didn't really think about him much for a while after that. I think Gwen and I talked about it once more when I got back from my run. I asked her is she saw the guy still walking around the neighborhood or anything. She said she hadn't and that was it.

Then I forgot totally about him until the next day.

I was driving home from work. After a long day after a long week, I was looking forward to getting home, cracking a beer, and firing up a game of Madden. When I pulled onto our street, I neared the house, and then noticed a small red car parked in front where we normally park. No big deal, I thought initially - occasionally people park in front of our house; friends of neighbors, etc. But as I neared the car I suddenly remember the dirt salesman from the day before. Crap! I looked at my clock - it read 5:35 pm. He wouldn't be waiting this long, would he?

As I neared, I looked into the car and sure enough, it was the guy. He looked a little annoyed, and he was studying all the passing cars intently. I realized he had probably been waiting there the full half-hour just to get in our house and probe for street dirt.

I didn't know what to do. I sure as hell didn't want to stop and deal with this guy - I knew that much. So I did the only responsible, adult thing. I drove right on by.

I could feel his eyes on me as I drove by, checking me out like the car in front of me, and I was hoping that with my sunglasses on he didn't realize it was me - the same jerk who had promised to be home by 5 pm that day for his wonderful dirt probing. I tried to look casual and take no interest in anything but the road in front of me. At the end of the street I turned off and went around the block, trying desparately to think about what to do.

I called Gwen, who was still at work, and told her the news with a "The murderer is in the house!" type of alarm, as if it was a tremendously huge deal. We laughed about it, and neither of us knew what to do. I decided to wait him out. I circled the block again, and from the end of the street (the direction I had originally come from) I could see the red car still there. Dammit!

I looked again at the clock. 5:45 pm. On Friday. This guy was persistent. He really wanted to get in there and probe for dirt! I went straight instead of turning onto the street. I knew I could circle the street from afar and keep spying on him as I drove around. (Think of a top down view of large number "8", but all squared out. Our street is the middle dash of the numeral eight. I basically drove around the perimeter and kept peering in at the middle as I drove around.)

I figured I would wait him out, and once he left I would just pull up and park. Well, he decided to leave, alright, only he managed to cross my path as he was doing so. Recognizing his car, I saw him coming right at me as I rounded a corner. Again, I looked straight ahead and paid no mind doing everything short of actively whistling non-chalantly so he could hear it in his car as he passed. I could again feel his eyes on me. I kept going straight, instead of turning down our street, hoping this would throw him, and made one more large lap.

Finally, as I rounded around again, the spot in front of our house was open and so I slowly approached. I feared he had seen me and would be back, so I actually parked a little further down the street (not in front of our house) just in case he drove back by.

Quickly getting out of the car, I ran (literally ran) to the door and went in. A few minutes later , with Madden already on, Gwen called and asked about the guy. I said he was gone, hopefully never to return but I kept waiting for the door buzzer to ring again, signaling his dirt-probing return. (That, or a brick through the window because he knew I was actively avoiding him). Luckily, it didn't happen. We didn't see him either later that night or the rest of this weekend.

But tomorrow is Monday - a work day. And he could be back. Back on the prowl. Back on the streets. I just hope, should he show his face around these parts again, that he walks on by this time, forgetting all about our little old place. Otherwise.... Well, otherwise, I have no idea what the hell could happen.

We still have no idea what he wanted in the first place.