Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Vacuum Cleaner

I happened to be home early today, and while upstairs working on the computer, the door bell rang.

I’d already gathered the mail, so I assumed that someone from UPS or FedEx was ringing the bell to let me know that there was a package on the porch. Expecting to hear the roar of the engine while the delivery truck moved along, I was surprised to look out into my driveway, and spy what appeared to be a van that my brother or sister-in-law had driven to family events in the past.

Was there some problem in the family?

Did they need to go to the bathroom?

How did they know I was home?

I opened the door.

Dancing on my porch was a early-twenty something Chris Farley look alike hopping from right foot to left and left to right while waving a roll of Bounty towels at full left arm’s length and his open palm at full right arm’s length as though he was performing the “I’m a little teapot” ballet.

“A free gift for the house?” he shouted through his wide mouth smile.

As my thoughts ran through various stops -- “$3 towels,” “goofy dance,” “is he dangerous?” – the overwhelming desire for something free forced me to open the storm door.

“Thank-you sir. I only want a few minutes of your time to talk to you about some of our products. Let me tell to my boss.”

As he walked back toward the van, I suddenly realized what a trout which sucked in a tasty looking morsel to discover the food nabbed its lip as it tried to spit it out felt.

Like the trout shaking its head, I considered throwing the towels out on the porch and shutting the door, but couldn’t let go.

As he opened the driver’s side door of the van, a just post-high school girl climbed out of the rear seat and opened the hatch back. He lifted a large black box from the rear while she grabbed a smaller black box and some kind of shoulder pack before returning to the porch.

“Are you familiar with Kirby Vacuums?” he asked.

I was trying to run with the current while the stabbed lip was pulled back toward the man standing in the middle of the stream with the rod high above his head.

Towels in right hand, and left on the storm, I pushed the door open for him to hold while he let someone he introduced as his assistant “Tracy (or was it Stacy?) my quickest sweeper” into living room.

“We won’t take too much of your time. I know you won’t buy one, but she gets paid for doing a presentation,” he said as she held a limp hand out for me to shake. “She’s my quickest vacuumer and you’ll get the house cleaned as part of the demo.”

“If, by chance, you do want to buy one, she’s competing for a trip to Orlando, and will make you a real good deal to win it!”

Stacy / Tracy stopped just beyond the door and said, “Let me take off my shoes.”

In stocking feet, Tracy / Stacy reached for the big box and began spilling what appeared to be countless mechanical parts on the floor. I decided to put the towels on the dining room table and guarded the kitchen door with my arms folded.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said as he backed out the front door.

I could feel the net lift me from the stream as he got back into the van and backed down my driveway.

Stacy / Tracy assembled the vacuum in a couple of minutes chirping “I know you don’t want to buy one, but . . . “about once every twenty seconds. Each “I know . . . “would be followed by some platitude like “thanks for letting me get out of the rain” (it was wet, but not raining that I could tell), “this is the most beautiful house I’ve been in all day” (where have they been peddling these things?), “are you retired?” (I’d come home early), “how nice you can get off work early.”

Then, she asked, “Are you married?”

I hesitated to answer, wondering which would get me in the most trouble before opting for “yes.”

“Oh, it would have been so nice to show this to your wife too,” Tracy / Stacy chirped.

Looking through the hole in the creel, I could see the man in the stream begin the next cast.

“Is there a plug I can use?”

I pointed toward one on the wall next to the front door. “Is this your family?” she chirped as she looked at the pictures on top of the table. “What a beautiful picture! It’s so good to be out of the rain!” (no drops on the windows yet).

She pried at the childproof plastic cover we keep in the plugs to preclude curious two-year-old’s fingers from probing the depths of the socket. Her shirt lifted from the back of her pants as she leaned into the task.

As I gasped at what this would look like, she whined “This is too hard, do you have another plug?”

I grabbed the cord and plugged it into the wall plug behind me in the kitchen backing from the toxic bare back.

Stacy / Tracy began vacuuming, catching excessive dust in the fixture replacing the bag on the vacuum. “This is typical,” she said, as she handed me the two screens with what appeared to be a bushel of dust recovered from about two square feet of rug.

My mind flashed back 20 years when in the same circumstances, a brother in law brought over his best friend to run the same demonstration. I’d let that demo go on for an hour and a half to learn that the Kirby was expensive unless I compared it to what I’d already paid for my furnace, air conditioner, the washing machine (for the curtains which could be vacuumed), the dryer, and an air purifier.

Tracy / Stacy was taking the dirt revealer off and was starting to vacuum the front room saying, “This won’t take long” when I said, “I only have five minutes.”

“You’re home early from work!”

“I came home to get some work done where it’s quiet!”

“Well, I get paid for the demonstration. Can I show you one more thing before I call my boss?”

I’d figured out how to escape the creel. I don’t remember what she showed me except she asked, “When he gets here will you tell him I didn’t do anything to shorten the demonstration?”

I agreed.

Dancing bear came to the door, and as I opened it, said, “So, did Stacy (or was it Tracy) make you mad?”

I assured him she’d been good, while she somehow put the gear back into what now looked like too small of a package.

“One last thing,” he said as he went out the door. “Could we come back some time when your wife is home?”

I told him no, shut the door, and locked it.

Take care,

jim