Vacuum Cleaner (Redux)

It’s not often one gets a second chance, but today I got a second chance on the vacuum cleaner gig.

Today around 3 p.m. the doorbell rang. Taking a break from preparing some roast stuffed brook trout, I went to the door, and again, found another not quite so lithe dancing teddy bear standing there, this time holding out a box of Kleenex (real Kleenex!) and telling me that I had no obligation for accepting it.

“I’m from “Buzzy-scheme” (name changed to protect any consumers who may read this)
and we don’t expect you to buy Buzzy Scheme, but we get credit from the boss if we show it to you.

I was a little disappointed as the last time the boss showed up to get Flopsy (or was it Mopsy?) in the door, and peering past this guy’s shoulder, I didn’t see Flopsy (or was it Mopsy?) waiting to enter my home.

“We don’t want you to buy anything . . .” (a circumstance which may explain the current economic demise more than the Imbecile President George W. Bush dumping the economy in the drink) “ . . . but . . . ”

I looked to the north and spotted the station wagon.
“ . . . we’d like to show you the product.”

Thinking I could use a box of REAL Kleenex, I paused for about five seconds, but thinking about the trout, and the time I’d take looking at something I wouldn’t be expected to buy anyway, I said, “I’m not interested.”

My hand shook, but to put the exclamation point on the “not interested” statement, I held the Kleenex out to him.

He looked over his shoulder at the car, and took the box in his hand. Before he could argue, I was back in the house, closing the main door, letting him hold the storm open.

He didn’t slam it shut, but thankfully disappeared (presumably heading south).
My conscience clear, and juices running, I returned to the trout and began salting and peppering the cuisine prior to roasting it (375-degrees for 30-minutes).

Can’t say old dogs don’t learn new tricks.

Saved by Gustav

While the Republican's debated whether the imbecile in chief, George W. Bush, should attend their convention, Gustav intervened.

When a similar hurricane named "Katrina" hit the Louisiana coast, John S. McCain, the equivalent of a cuckold from the tactics used to give Bush a victory in the North Carolina 2000 Republican primary ( see: Boston Globe ), was sitting on Air Force One enjoying his 69th birthday with the Cuckolder in Chief.

This year, the duo decided to separate for McCain's birthday celebration, allegedly to show concern for citizens of Louisiana, who meant little when Katrina hit in 2005 long after Bush was in office and before McCain gained the Republican nomination for the top office in the nation.

There had been talk during the campaign about what the Republican's could do with George -- titular head of the party who is enjoying the lowest public approval rating of any national figure, including Herbert Hoover who watched the nation sink into depression, over the last 100 years. It made bad TV if Bush raved about his "legacy" when a majority of the thinking public (the 27-or so percent who don't have the capacity to understand the damage he has done aside) know the nation is worse off today than it was in 2000 when Bush took office with a budget surplus paying down on a $4-trillion debt his daddy (George H. W.) and Ronald Reagan created to "trickle down" prosperity on ordinary American's by giving tax breaks to the top three percent of those receiving income in the country.

Part of the reason Bush isn't "persona grata" at the convention is to hide the legacy he established by undermining the US Constitution, leading the US into a war largely conceived in lie and fantasy, losing the world's recognition of the US as a leader in human rights, watching middle class jobs escape overseas to international corporations which pay no taxes to the nation, presided over the decay of the national infrastructure even as contractors bilked the government to restore Iraq's, and taking the nation another $4 trillion in deeper debt (in addition to the "emergency appropriations" he used to hide the costs of Iraq and after he threw the Clinton surplus at his corporate backers) over the past eight years.

It would be difficult for McCain to build on the Republican legacy if anyone looked at the facts surrounding Bush, but the sitting President deserved his honor in a manner that Hoover deserved the honor to speak at the 1932 Republican convention which marked the depths of the economic collapse he watched unroll as he said the government should do nothing to rescue the economy.

Another reason McCain may not have wanted Bush to attend is to avoid scrutiny of John McCain's campaign(review: Arizona Republic ), which markets him as an honest broker for the nation, when, in fact, he's the only one of five Senators accused of accepting the influence dollars from Charles Keating to call of Federal Regulators from investigating his savings and loan scam who remains in office.

George W. is under scrutiny for his manipulation of the rules starting with his alleged "service" in the Alabama Air National Guard; continuing with his title as the "compassionate conservative" (as those who suffered in Katrina); following with his assertion of McCain's "illegitimate child;" continuing with the statement that Saddam Hussein, a non-sympathetic figure, supported the attack on the World Trade Center; rolling through "signing statements" which recognize a law has been enacted, but declare the President won't recognize it; and continuing today as the economy collapses while he prates "the 'conomy is fundamentally sound" to avoid blame for the increase in costs caused by his borrowing while still in office.

McCain no doubt would have liked Bush to stand down at this year's convention.

Gustav gave him the excuse to excuse the Bush cement shoes from arriving at McCain's celebration.

Take care,

jim

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

"Liberal"; "Neocon"; "Right"; "Left"; "Democrat"; "Republican"; "Christian"; "Muslim"; "Jew"; "Commie"; "Islamo-Fascist" -- on Being Played for Saps

My first encounter with the talk radio phenomena was in 1996 while taking a cross country automobile trip with my favorite companion -- my wife.

Our idea was to merge a first visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for either of us with a search for the "real" America by staying away from the interstates on a trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Driving along US 2 in a family van equipped with an AM / FM receiver, it became tough to stay in touch with the outside world as the highway left the last “big” city in upper Michigan and wound toward Duluth.

As the population density shrank, the towns got farther and farther apart, and my wife’s search of the dial looking for any news from the path ahead, would catch the edge of a 1000-watt AM station offering a selection among a preachy woman's voice talking about morality and responsibility, or a loud man's lofty language expressing what was causing "the problems" in our society, or an atonal preacher urging us to follow the Bible, or country music.

Since I’m not fond of country music, and can only take the preacher until he tells me he's the only one who knows how Jesus wants me to live my life, the option was to hear out the preachy woman and the loud man while waiting for news and weather at the next time check or travel in silence without the outside information we sought.

It turned out to be a daily dose of Dr. Laura and then Rush, or Rush and then Dr. Laura marching one behind the other on a schedule between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays. The only variety was as one station faded and a new one encountered, we may get an instant rerun of the broadcast from the last zone.

It seemed as though every station manager used Rush and Dr. Laura interchangeably to fill those six hours regardless of the time zone.

As we focused more on the background sound while we drove across the sameness of North Dakota’s prairie farms and found fewer "new" things to point out to each other while we rode, I discovered that the tone of the message was "liberal influence is ruining our lives."

Fancying myself one during the Vietnam era, at first I was offended until I realized that what was purported to be "liberal" didn't match what beliefs I held.

"Liberal" was "duped by the media" (I could separate information from manipulation), pro-homosexual (I was ambivalent as long as I wasn't invited to participate), pro-government (not during Vietnam anyway), anti-gun (I'm not fond, but see a use in some instances particularly as we traversed the outback of Montana), anti-individual (I felt free and easy and didn't really care about another being such so long as they didn't interfere with my freeness and easiness), against religion (I thought myself religious), pro-abortion (I wasn't), anti-family (I was taking a trip with my wife because we enjoyed each other's company), unwilling to take responsibility for mistakes (well, I knew we were on our own if something went wrong during the trip), and generally anti-American (I was looking for a broader perspective of the real America!).

How could the speakers get it so wrong?

Having been trained in communications and the media, I guessed the region’s demographics along the Canadian border was pretty much people seeking reinforcement of their isolated beliefs.

Logic didn't matter so long as they were convinced the speaker was "with" them.

It drew listeners to justify ad time on the prairies, the "business" behind commercial radio no matter where broadcast.

So, what became more interesting than the lecturing was the types of callers who would show up on the airwaves to be abused by the hosts. I couldn't figure whether they were seeing their 15-minutes of fame, or were so removed from reality that they didn't realize they were being used. The debate was authoritarian – you’re either with me or wrong.

And, for the most part, the callers left the impression they’d join up with the radio voiced “debater.”

It was then I began to question the crutch – the shortened description of the “problem” which always seemed to creep into the answer. Dr. Laura’s “liberal” was different from Rush’s, but in either instance, its application was ruining whatever semblance of order the microphone owners urged on their listeners between commercial breaks.

Were we children, the “logic” associated with using the term was the same which kept us from looking beneath the bed for fear of finding the “boogie man.”

Having been born and raised and largely oriented to a bigger metropolitan region than I encountered around Grand Forks, Glasgow, Kalispell, Sandpoint, Coeur d’ Alene and Spokane, I thought the phenomena unique to relatively small towns – until we hit Seattle, where we’d still encounter the voices while surfing through the (thankfully) broader variety of entertainment and information (KIRO -- 710 became the regional favorite).

The “boogie man” shtick was a staple no matter what the demographic.

But wait, before those who don’t like a Rush, or a Dr. Laura, or an O'Reilly begin nodding wisely about those talkers' flaccid logic, apply the same “boogie man” definition to the terms in the title used by lesser known radio harranguers who justify their ad time with a "different" perspective.

The single word philosophies are staples in discussion whether you live where the vote was red or blue or the philosophy tends toward right of left.

Many live in a sound bite society where taking the time to think about the ideas behind the terms isn’t as easy as latching on emotionally to a term and following where the pundits who throw it out lead us. We don’t have time to discuss, so, instead, we shout terms at each other in “debate.”

And, every time we shout one of those terms we’re asserting “my boogie man is scarier than your boogie man” and limiting debate to how frequently and loudly we can shout our selected boogie man name.

All it does is herd us behind the few who coin the terms – the one’s who we allow to play us for saps.

Take care,

jim