No offense to anyone out there who sells vacuum cleaners door to door for a living, but when you say that it's only going to take 15 minutes to clean a prospective customer's carpet, you don't really mean it. Normally, I never go the door when someone is selling something. That's how I ended up with an overpriced Kirby in the first place, but today I had the blinds open and was just sitting down on the sofa to eat lunch when a woman knocked on my door. As I was only a few feet from the window and Bailey, the Wonder Chihuahua, was hanging from the blinds by his teeth, I couldn't exactly pretend like I wasn't there. Thus, I answered the door for once.As it turns out, the lady was selling Kirby vacuums. I thought that I was off the hook and could graciously say, "Thanks, but no thanks," since I already have one, but I couldn't. The lady asked if she could vacuum anyway because she didn't get paid unless she showed the vacuum to 15 houses in my neighborhood. Given my own jobless status, I wanted to help her. She promised me that it would only take 15 minutes and she wouldn't try to sell me the vacuum since I already had one.
Guess what the catch to that was? She wouldn't try to sell me one because she wasn't the one who would be doing the sales pitch. Her associate Mike was. Two hours later, not 15 minutes later, Mike had vacuumed my floors in my living room; shampooed them; vacuumed my sofa, love seat, and arm chair; and called in his manager, who was also named Mike, to get me a good deal. I told them a million times that I didn't have a job and barely had money for groceries, let alone for a new vacuum when mine worked just fine, but the two Mikes weren't listening. They kept calling yet another manager to get me an even better deal.
Again, no offense to Kirby salesmen, but even the better deals were ridiculous. They started out wanting me to pay $1695 for a vacuum and eventually lowered the price to $1000. Yeah, like anyone is or can pay that much for a vacuum in a recession. Even if I had the money, I wouldn't buy another one. Mine is fine, and if it ever dies and my warranty doesn't cover a replacement vacuum, I'm just going to buy a Dyson or the new Bissell Pet Vac. I'm never taking three years to pay for a vacuum ever again. I had to finally give the guys a big, fat no. They were polite, but they weren't happy with me, and I have no idea what happened to Little Miss Bait and Switch who originally came to the door.
Tomorrow if anyone knocks on the door, I'm going back to being the crazy recluse with all the dogs and not answer the door. If that makes me rude, so be it.
