We are too damn nice in this house. Seriously. I spent Claire's entire nap yesterday not buying a vacuum.Why would I waste a precious nap not buying a vacuum, you ask? Because BJ let the salesmen in the house while I was putting Claire down for nap, and neither one of us could be mean enough to kick him out after he said, "I don't get paid unless I make 30 of these nasty little circles of dirt and show them to my boss..." I'll get to an explanation of that in a minute.
Nevermind the fact that I have a Dyson Animal. Nevermind the fact that I don't have $2000 to shell out for a new vacuum (I love how people think that "making payments" = free money. Hello! If I had $2000 to spend right now, or $2500 over the next 3 years, I can think of about 9 zillion things I'd rather do with it than vacuum!) Nevermind the fact that while the kid was here doing his demo, I was on Ebay finding the exact same vacuum for a fraction of the price. ("Those are stolen," he insisted. Yes, because most crooks go for the 20 lb. vacuums when they're stealing things. Why waste time on jewelry and cash and flat panel TVs when they can boost a vacuum and sell it on Ebay!)
I should start at the beginning. So he comes in and uses my vacuum, going over the same spot 30 times. Ok, fine. My carpet is a wreck. This is not news. It's the cheapo berber from Menards, probably 99 cents a yard, and it's laid down on the slab. That's right, no pad. Just carpet on concrete. And now you know why my kids have so many bruises. Anyway, we also have a dog and a cat and a cold, and it wasn't vacuumed recently. I figure I'm helping the kids build immunities. They won't have asthma because their little immune systems get a great workout living in my house...
Anyway, so he put this doodad on the vacuum that collects the crud on a paper filter, instead of in a bag. He vacuums for 2 seconds and pulls out the filter, and it's nasty. Super nasty. I don't even like thinking about it. And he did it over and over and over again, and I started to get a little queasy.
"Dude, no matter how many of those little circles you make, I still don't have two large to buy a vacuum," I say, because saying it in English didn't work the first forty times, I figure maybe if I speak a little more street, he'll catch my drift (especially if his street speak is circa 1991, like mine).
He continues making little circles. The area grows larger. More circles. Lots of them. Stacked up in front of the door, preventing us from exiting the room.
I try arguing with him. I try explaining our financial situation (if it were a federal threat level, we'd be on red). I try ignoring him (walking over to the sink to get myself a glass of water, and he asks for one too! This is where I should've just thrown him out).
Finally I say, "Look, man, just call your boss and go away, because we're not buying."
So he called his boss, and we had to do the song and dance with him, too.
ARGH!
I talked him down to $800 before we finally got them to go away, though, so next time you need to buy a car, take me with you.
I'll bring my Dyson.
1 comment:
Ah, I was actually you who let him in. I had walked away from the door for something when you came down the stairs. Granted, I begrudgingly told the guy holding a can of carpet freshener that I did have a couple of minutes give them an honest opinion but I would like to think that he would have gotten turned away by me if I saw him walking up to the door carrying a vacuum. We was very good at getting me to agree to the sale's pitch, almost like it wasn't just his second week doing sales. But that can't be; door-to-door salesmen are the picture of honesty.
"A couple of minutes" my butt. He was here for 90.
And why would someone that needs the extra income be wanting to win a trip to Puerto Rico anyway? Wouldn't you want to pay down your debt?
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