I WAS NEVER any good at selling vacuum cleaners. But I tried, I really did: the summer after my first year in college I answered an ad and found myself training to be an Electrolux salesperson. I learned this neat trick: you knock on a door carrying a tool box and tell the person who answers that you're a specially trained vacuum-cleaner repair person, and you're offering a free "maintenance check," no strings attached, on any brand of vacuum in the house.

I had a screwdriver, and I wasn't afraid to use it. I took apart Hoovers and Eurekas and Kirbys and once started to take apart one of those inside-the-walls central units that cost about $5,000 (the homeowner stopped me just in time). Sometimes, I put them back together just fine. Sometimes, they never really worked right again. But that was the whole point:

"You know, Mrs. DeLuca, this unit was never any good. Trust, me, the workmanship is terribly shoddy. I can certainly repair it, but with a beautiful home and such nice carpets, what you really need is the Electrolux Model J, the only vacuum cleaner in its class with a special power nozzle. And you know what? It's as easy to pay for as it is to use."

I didn't sell a single vacuum cleaner, not one, but I learned how to break them, and now I can do that at home.

After a few weeks of not selling vacuums I found a job in a discount department store, stocking shelves and then (in one of the great chapters in my professional life) writing and delivering special promotional announcements over the public address system.

"Good afternoon, shoppers, and welcome to Masters, where shopping is always a pleasure." That disembodied voice booming across 100,000 square feet of retail space was me. "Shoppers, the famous-maker Sapolin paint is on sale today, and today only, in our hardware department. It's time to pick up a gallon and get some fresh color in your life. Shoppers, paint prices may never be this low again."

It was wonderful: I sat in a little airless room and drank contraband beer out of a Styrofoam cup and wrote lines like "Paint prices may never be this low again." And I controlled the volume – everyone had to listen.

I've never been a worm farmer, like one of the people in our cover package, and I've never popped zits for a living. But I've broken vacuum cleaners, and that's something.