Asking for it?

Yet another window guy story:

So I'm standing in my living room with "Mark", who is wearing a "dress" T-shirt (like the ones boys wear to the bar to go with their gold necklaces and hair product), very nice shoes and a tattoo with an anagram on it. I am making the assumption that he owns a motorcycle. I am also assuming that he has seen the inside of Gusoline Alley. He has no I.D. but he has a binder with him.

As we are starting on the "hello"s and the handshake and the "would you like some water? . . . diet Coke?", he asks if "my husband is around" . . .

Now I should have not skipped a beat and said, "Yeah, Buck's in the basement . . . sharpening the knives . . . " but the comment threw me. Here is a man I don't know, that I just let into my house, who is asking if I'm alone. I instead made some quip about window companies and single women. He apologized and stated that he was required to ask that "because home improvement is a big decision that should be made by both parties". What a load of crap. Like I wouldn't share with Buck that I was buying new windows . . . I'm sure he would notice when they came to install them. (Actually, since Buck is imaginary I don't have to share much with him . . . imaginary husbands are very agreeable)

So I can't figure out if they ask (and they all ask) so they can figure out how much money you have . . . thus how much they can jack up the price . . . or if they have a "man" speech and a "chick" speech and he just wants to know which to start with. Or maybe they are planning the rape scenario . . . I don't know. But it's scary to say to strange men . . . yeah, no husband . . . without a large dog around anyway.

To his credit, "Mark" was the nicest window man yet. Didn't do the hard sell. Admitted that there was flux to the final, best price. Trusted my measurements and didn't walk all over my house. So maybe he was just flirting. Still, my brother is coming for tomorrow's estimate. Enough of this bulls#*t.