Did you know there are door-to-door vacuum salespeople still out there? I thought they went the way of the dinosaur. You know, something from a bygone era, like rotary telephones and Howard Cosell. So imagine my surprise when a friendly team of Kirby salespeople showed up at my door last night at 8pm (!!!). They wanted to do a free demonstration of this new all-in-one vacuum/carpet shampooer. They were polite, exuberant and overjoyed at all the “exciting things” this product could offer me.
Seeing as how I had already started pricing carpet cleaners (and I was half in the bag on good wine), I was eager to let them try out this “brand-spanking new, multi-purpose, revolutionary” piece of equipment. (Had they thrown in a set of Ginsu knives … I probably would have bought the thing on the spot. It slices! It dices! It juliennes fries!)
The pitch (again, at 8pm on a Saturday night — weird) was impressive. I informed the young man sweeping my carpet that I had just vacuumed. “Oh, just wait,” he said with some ominous undertones. He then managed to suck up what appeared to be an entire flower garden of dirt from my pristine-looking carpet. I had to suppress my gag reflex.
The young man was desperately trying to finish his sales pitch, but I was so intrigued with the whole approach that I shut him down immediately. I slipped in to reporter mode and started peppering him with questions faster than he could show me the putrid filth coming out of my carpet strands.
“SoWhatDidYouDoBeforeYouBecameACarpetSalesman?”
“DoTheyStillSellEncyclopediasDoorToDoor?”
“DoesYourBackHurtFromDoingThisAllDay?”
And while I was mad-crazy impressed with the product I was in no position to spend over $1,400 on a moment’s notice. I could tell the team was disappointed, but they left my house with a good attitude and firm handshake. When one of them went outside to pack up gear, he lit up a cigarette and told me that he’d already met his quota and sold one today. “But two sales are always better than one, you know,” he laughed. Yep, I got that memo, dude.
And, yes, in case you were wondering, my carpet has never looked better. Thanks, Kirby. And congrats on your 98th year in business, at least that’s what the Alex the salesguy mentioned in his spiel.