Henry Still's Sales Resistance opens with Perry Mansfield whistling an old Stravinsky tune after a concert, a detail that immediately signals his nonconformity. The story's world prizes consumption so highly that a Pulitzer Prize is awarded to advertising copy, and the highest social honor is a visit from a Master Salesman. Perry's discomfort with a modern symphony titled "The Flivver"—which celebrates assembly lines and the "saintly salesman"—reveals his alienation from a society that equates buying with virtue. The catalog subjects list "Consumption (Economics) -- Fiction" and "Sales personnel -- Fiction," but the excerpts show a more specific satire: Perry's internal conflict is not about economics but about the psychological pressure to conform through purchasing.

The Misfit's Inner World

Perry Mansfield is introduced as a man troubled by his own preferences. He likes to walk, but that simple act "labeled him as a misfit" in a world where anti-gravity puttersees are the norm. His psychiatrist, Dr. Stone, runs him through a "mechanical analyzer" and scolds the results. The story's voice is ironic: Perry wants to be conventional, to "indulge and enjoy the polished luxury of his world," yet he cannot bring himself to desire what he is supposed to. The note from a Master Salesman—a platinum engraved card in a pastel gray envelope—is described with mock reverence, an "honor like—like a mayor or a bishop." But Perry's reaction is dread, not pleasure. The excerpts capture his fear of his own thoughts: he claps his hand to his mouth as if someone might have heard him wish to be left alone.

The Machinery of Enforcement

The story's world is one of pervasive surveillance and automated enforcement. Perry's home has a "fluorescent scanner" that identifies him and opens the door. When he destroys a Serve-All appliance to avoid a purchase, he knows that "every piece of equipment was centrally registered and carried a built-in signal to summon repair machinery." Destruction of mortgaged property is a criminal offense. The repair robot arrives swiftly, described as a "mechanical beast" that "hummed anxiously, retrieving bits of wreckage like a mother bird repairing a broken egg." The catalog subject "Courts -- Fiction" is not directly evident in the excerpts, but the legal framework is implied: Perry's contract with Serve-All binds him, and his escape attempt is a flight from the law. The story's setting is a tightly regulated consumer society where even the food is locked in place, accessible only by dialing.

The Salesman's Final Offer

Master Marlboro, the Master Salesman, appears at the climax not to sell a product but to offer a sanatarium. After Perry's desperate attempt to flee—clawing at locked food tins, bleeding on the counter—Marlboro finds him with a repair robot and a contract pad. The salesman's reaction is one of "delicate disgust": "Really, Mr. Mansfield, isn't this a childish way to treat a beautiful machine?" The contract Perry signs is for "all required services and exclusive use of private quarters in Airy Hills Sanatarium." The story ends with Perry's surrender, but the excerpts do not reveal what happens next. The catalog subject "Consumption (Economics) -- Fiction" is subverted here: the final transaction is not a purchase but a commitment to a mental institution, suggesting that the ultimate consumer good is compliance itself.

The excerpts from Sales Resistance offer a focused satire of a consumer society that polices desire. Still's prose is efficient, using small details—the Stravinsky melody, the putterseat, the locked food tins—to build a world where non-consumption is a pathology. Readers should note that the story was published in 1956, a time of postwar prosperity and rising advertising influence. The catalog subjects hint at a legal or economic critique, but the excerpts emphasize psychological pressure and automated enforcement. The ending is ambiguous: Perry signs the sanatarium contract, but whether this is a defeat or a strange kind of relief is left open.