I scarcely know where to begin. Probably at the beginning.....however, it's tempting to start by saying that I already know that I'm going to hell because I have occasionally used my handicapped parking permit (issued because of my mom) when I haven't been able to find a parking space.....so NOW, I'm also going to vacuum cleaner hell......
This is an old story. One that many others have experienced. It's called almost total humiliation at the hands of the Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman. They ask you to vaccum before they arrive. That's so they can re-vacuum your rug, your floor, your piano keys and your chairs to show you over and over how poorly your vacuum cleaner (and by implication you as a vacuumer) performs. They even spill baking soda all over your floor and rug and show just how much your vacuum cleaner leaves behind......ah, my poor expensive Sears Kenmore.....how badly you clean the dust, the dust mites, the allergens, the pet dander, the dead skin cells and all the accumulated crap of 20 years or so which is lodged in the living room rug.
The hook? Well, I was on my way out the door to go visit my mother when the 2 front men arrived and offered to shampoo my rug for free, if I would allow them to demo the vacuum cleaner. The rug shampooer was FREE along with the vacuum cleaner only on this day, and they wanted to do it. I told them that I knew that I didn't want to buy their vacuum cleaner, but I did need my rug cleaned. I walked them in to look at the many stains from cat throw-up, to make sure they really wanted to do this for me. They did. So.....off I went, planning to return by 4:30 so they could do their darndest to clean my rug.
Much to my surprise, a third man, Gino Bertini was the one who showed up to do the demo and shampoo. He kept reminding me that he didn't come along with this fabulous, 17 different-machines-in-one-vacuum cleaner. He was a very enthusiastic demonstrater, and after about an hour, he had covered my rug with round white pieces of filter paper covered with......the above mentioned accumulation of crap. It was pretty clear that I am a bad housekeeper and I use an inferior vacuum cleaner. To show what a nice guy he was, he threw in a free shampoo of my recliner chair, after he vacuumed all the dead skin off of it. About this time, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry......ha ha. And speaking of ha, ha, ha, his cell phone rang in the middle of the chair shampoo, and it was his mother calling. He got off the phone quickly, but that precipitated over 45 minutes of his life story, his mother's brain aneurysm, his father on oxygen, his deadbeat older brother living at home for 2 years and not paying any rent and then his dead-beat ex-wife showing up with their 3 kids to move in to the parents' 2 bedroom condo, how this ex-wife person had stolen his (Gino's) wife's identity a few years earlier and it had taken them 2 years and $4000.00 to straighten that mess out........Wow! No vacuuming or shampooing took place during this narrative. After a glass of juice (by this time he was pretty worked up and sweating profusely), he began to work on the most obvious of the cat throw-up stains. Oh, did I mention that it is now 7:00 p.m. and we've been at this for 2 1/2 hours????
While the shampoo is working its way into the fibers of my gross rug, he gives me the run-down on how cheap he is going to make this purchase for me. The price to start was $1995.00. He could subtract the shampooer for $250, give me a $200.00 trade-in on my vacuum and the crapola Dirt Devil I have in the basement; I got a discount for being "elderly," and for being a member of AARP. And on top of that, he was willing to subtract $100.00 of his $160.00 commission to bring the price down to something like a measley $1200.00. What did I think? I said, no, I didn't want to buy the vacuum. On the other hand, I hadn't had my rug shampooed yet either. What to do, what to do? I told him I didn't have the money. He offered an interest free loan. I said no. He asked what it would take? I said nothing. I didn't want to buy a new vacuum cleaner.
Fortunately for me, his cell phone rang again, and it was the 2 front men, having found another live one. He told them to come get him to do the next demo, and asked one of them to stay and shampoo my rug. Wow, I dodged a big bullet on that, I thought. I was going to get my rug shampooed after all......Before Gino left, though, he took me aside and said sotto voce, that if I wanted the machine, I should call him, and he would get the head guy, to give it to me at his cost, which was $1000.00. By now, it was 7:30, and all I wanted was to get my rug cleaned and get them out so I could eat dinner. At 8:30, I breathed a big sigh of relief, having fended off several other sales pitches from Zack, the shampooer.
Oh yeah, how could I forget.....I had to give names and phone numbers of people to call, and that's where the vacuum cleaner hell comes in. I went down the list of people at my former place of employment, and chose people I wasn't particularly fond of, and put their names and phone numbers on the list.......sorry guys! If you have 4 hours, you get a good looking rug and chair out of the deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment