I arrived home the other afternoon from grocery shopping to find a very large man happily vacuuming my living room.
“Oh hi!” he said. Seeing my puzzled look, he continued. “I’m just vacuuming your living room!”
“Yes I can see that, but….” I said coolly. At the same time, Tate came into the room looking at me with wide eyes and a “help me” look. “He’s a vacuum cleaner salesman,” Tate explained.
The house was in complete disarray, the children were in the playroom screaming, there were bags and bags of groceries to be unloaded from the car, and it was time to start preparing dinner. And the vacuum cleaner salesman was trying to spout the wonders of his Kirby over the chaos.
I was not amused.
My darling husband kindly offered to retrieve the remaining groceries from the car, leaving me to deal with screaming kids and the fracking vacuum cleaner salesman, who continued jabbering on and on and vacuuming every surface of my house.
“See this flexible hose?! It’s great for getting to all those hard to reach places, like behind your TV. Wow! It sure is dirty back there…”
Annoyed, I attempted to calm my children and unload grocery sacks, AND start dinner. I completely ignored the vacuum cleaner salesman. Tate invited him in, Tate could deal with getting him to leave.
He kept right on talking (and talking), as if I were listening.
Tate finally completed the unnecessarily long process of unloading the groceries and went back to the vacuum cleaner salesman. I was sure that Tate could see my irritation, it was obvious in my glare. He surely could also hear the children crying because of hunger, and I KNOW he could see all the groceries that needed putting away. Head hanging low, Tate went to deal with the vacuum cleaner salesman.
The vacuum cleaner salesman apparently had some sort of mesmerizing effect on Tate. “How much would you be willing to pay for this vacuum?” he asked Tate.
I wanted to scream, “NOTHING. Please GO AWAY. Can you not see that this is a VERY BAD time?????” Surely I didn’t need to say anything. SURELY Tate would tell him to leave.
My darling husband kindly inquired about the price and told the man how impressed he was with the vacuum. I nearly screamed.
The vacuum cleaner salesman refused to give a price and somehow wrangled himself inside of our bedroom to give a demonstration of it’s “awesome” mattress cleaning abilities.
With the groceries put away, I began to fix dinner. I could hear the vacuum cleaner salesman wheeling and dealing with Tate.
“This is a one time offer. I’m just down from South Bend, doing the folks here in New Town a favor by offering you this Kirby.”
I can hear Tate stammering in reply. “Uh. We don’t. Uh. No. Uh. Can I just get your card? Uh. We’ll call you?”
After about TWENTY minutes of this “It’s a one time deal,” “Uh. No, we don’t want it,” the vacuum cleaner salesman finally gave up.
I wanted to scream, “Praise Jesus! He’s leaving, he’s leaving!!!”
That’s when Tate did the unthinkable. He said, to the ALMOST FINALLY DEPARTING vacuum cleaner salesman, “So, you’re from South Bend? You a Notre Dame fan?”
And that’s when my head exploded.
As I was picking up the remnants of my skull, I heard Tate offer the vacuum cleaner salesman a DRINK. A DRINK! For the next HALF HOUR, they talked football. FOOTBALL! All the while, the vacuum cleaner salesman is guzzling glass after glass of water and hinting about how the dinner I was preparing sure smelled good.
I know one thing. When you’re trying to get a MALE SALESMAN to leave your house, under NO CIRCUMSTANCE do you bring up fracking FOOTBALL, nor do you offer them food and drink.
Let this be a lesson learned.
WOW. I don’t know which part is more amazing. Tate asking if he wanted a drink or the fact that door to door vaccuum salesmen still exist! My husband’s the same way, though. He spent 40 minutes in our yard the other day talking to a guy from Edward Jones Investments while our child screamed and showered me with his dinner. They must have hit it off–the guy sent him a little note in the mail the next day. Precious, huh?
Wow, I didn’t realize they still had door to door vaccum cleaner salesmen! I thought they went out of fashion when we got the Internet.
Here’s how I would have gotten rid of the guy.
Guy: Do you want to buy this vaccum to replace the perfectly good one that you already have?
Me: Let me ask you a question first. Will it clean the house on it’s own like my Roomba? Magically clean dustbunnies I don’t even know about from underneath my furniture? Will it make me a martini after a long hard day and tuck my imaginary childen in at bedtime, tell them a story, and get them the ten thousand glasses of water that they demand until they pass out from exhaustion each night? No? Then NO YOUR SWEEPER IS WORTH NOTHING TO ME!! NOTHING!!
I had the same thing happen to me about 6 months ago…but I was gone and my husband got him to clean half our house. I did a post about it….
http://designhermomma.blogspot.com/2008/04/clean-carpetthanks-sucka.html
Stupid salesman (not to offend all the sales people here at the blog)
On the bright side, you don’t have to vaccuum again for, like, maybe a month. That’s worth something…
I would have to agree – wasn’t it worth the price of a glass of water to have your whole house vacuumed? LOL
I have met my torture with the Kirby dudes too. I just had boy number 3 and had my parents over to visit. Somehow he broke through the door and started cleaning my carpet..and then he wanted to vacuum my mattress and I said oh hell to the no. Then some magic trance came over me and I got suckered into buying a vacuum.
The thing is they are drumped off by their coherts and pretty much are “stuck” there until they can come back around to get them. I hate that I’m so nice.
The rainbow dudes will be next..they only stop by when “friends” reccomend you. Those “friends” are no longer friends of mine. : )
Ya know, I think that is actually a sales tactic. Like, stay as long as possible so that people will just BUY THE DAMN VACUUM to get the salesman the hell out of the door.
You’ve got my money now, so leave for God’s sake already!!!
see, how effective it is? If you’d just plunked down the cash he would’ve been gone at least 60 minutes earlier.
@Texan Mama: It would have cost us $2100 to get him out of the house!!!
Oh my gosh. I am pretty sure that by that time I would have been SCREAMING.
I think my head would’ve exploded by that time. My sympathies!
We were trapped by a Rain Soft guy for 3.5 hours once. Never again will a salesman enter my home. Ever. Word of warning: DO NOT, under any circumstances, agree to a “water test” over the phone or in person!!!
Molly’s Mom’s lastest post..Milestones
This is when it’s fun to have a husband who likes to mess with people. He might let the guy in, but he’d also have the guy convinced that we were polygamists or something.
jerseygirl89′s lastest post..No, I’m Not Dead
I hear you. I can one up you. We had a van of the salesman come to our house. Offering free samples of cleaners before saying what they sold. They wouldn’t leave me be until I finally said, leave I don’t want a a new vac. so end of story. They were doing drive bys and we had to call the cops. Freaks selling Kirby. Too bad for Kirby.
Sommer-Green&CleanMom’s lastest post..A Snapshot of Motherhood
isn’t it nice when the husbands make their own playdates? and they say women can’t say no!
Sissy’s lastest post..A Little Help, Please?
MPS is brilliant with these guys. He ‘baffles them with bullshit’ and you can SEE them trying to back towards the door.
Next time I will send him round for you.
I hope that guy tells the Fuller Brush Man not to bother
thatgirlblogs’s lastest post..I’m F*ing Matt Damon
Girl, I hope your entire house was clean when that man finally departed. Oh, I hope. For Tate’s sake.
BTW, is Tate still alive?
Mama DB’s lastest post..Hello and welcome to Stressville.
Oi! The Kirby salesmen! They always come to my house right at naptime and ring the door bell like three times! Just as I get my kids in their beds! “Can we shampoo your carpet?” IRRR! I finally put a no soliciting sign on my door bell, because they came like once a week.
The Farmers Wife’s lastest post..Rushing Slacker
All I can say is I am so glad I have never had door-to-door salespeople coming to my house!
And I am hoping that by some twisted law of the universe they don’t start now…
Egads. I am glad he finally left!
Stacy (mama-om)’s lastest post..Basketball-head Boy
We had a Kirby guy come around one night. I felt so sorry for him though, cos we weren’t going to buy a vacuum cleaner that cost more than our car! When he was in the house it was like he was on jumping beans, and when he finally heard the NO, it was like we’d unplugged him – very sad to watch.
After weekly visits of people trying to get us to change our phone plan or power supplier (and lying in the process about what we have and what they can deliever), we now have a sign at our door reading “We are not interested in changing our power/gas supplier or telecommunications provider. Please don’t waste our time and yours.” Works wonders…except for the guys wanting us to join up for karate…
Bwahahaha. What an um, interesting experience. Read: freaking annoying. Although in theory, a door-to-door salesman selling vacuums sounds kinda cute. KINDA. Okay, not really. Just for some reason reminds me of The Music Man.
Don’t ask.
Absolutely, easily read and it’s absolutely the truth.
Ha! Ha! I don’t know what you like to read, just light read here…
Lela Blonde’s lastest post..A Totally Optional Prompt
Oh, I saw a huge man standing by something by your mailbox FOREVER the other evening. It only caught my attention because the dude was wearing a screaming orange shirt that you could see from miles away. I was a little worried for you guys because he didn’t leave, he just stood there. I almost called you but decided you must see the crazy man standing at the end of your driveway FOREVER and it didn’t look like he was trying to get in your house. I guess he had already been there and was just waiting for “Tate” to invite him BACK in. hahahha! SO glad he didn’t do the “walk of shame” to my neck of the woods.
Heidi’s lastest post..I hear angels singing a happy tune
O.M.G. I could have written the same damn thing!!!! That sooo happened to me on like the 2nd day of us moving into our home. I left my husband here and he let that fucker in to vacuum our carpet. THEN took us over to vacuum our mattress and try to scare the shit out of us about what we are laying on. Dude, I use mattress pads and sheets so that shit doesn’t scare me as much as it should.
I would have had to strangle my husband if he invited him for a drink though LMAO.
Kelly’s lastest post..She has waited over 30 years
Ha! Madness lives in South Bend and is OH SO NOT a Notre Dame Fan. PLEASE keep our Kirby Salesman.. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD Keep him!
Love
Madness
Madness’s lastest post..Where Typhoid Suzie is actually Lotus Carroll
I assume that the salesman has moved in with you and is a member of your family by now, right?
Marinka’s lastest post..You Say Tomato
Dear Tate-
SHOOSHY.
xoxo-Casey
moosh in indy.’s lastest post..Titles vs. Truths.
OK. I had no idea that vaccum cleaner saleman even still existed. Sometimes men are clueless…. Did he end up staying for dinner?
Shannanb aka Mommy Bits]’s lastest post..It’s Not Me, It’s You.
vacuum cleaner salesman? they still do that? shit, really? for honesttogod reals? you’re shittin’ me.
Also? if my hubby did what tate did? i’d rip off his head and pour his drink down his neck. just sayin…
Kia’s lastest post..Junior Kindergarten, Round 2
Yikes. Why do men always let these people in our houses?
We had the Kirby salesman in our house once, too. He was trying so hard to explain the deep cleaning abilities of the thing, and I kept glaring at Aaron for letting him in.
Why? Our house was one week old. The carpets were brand new. I didn’t need a stupid new vacuum cleaner. It took forever to get rid of him.
Christina’s lastest post..Coins Aren’t For Buying Stuff, They’re For Stuffing Pigs (duh)
seriously, I could not do this without you. thanks jennifer
I have no words. No words at all. I would have had words for him, but right now I’m just speechless.
canape’s lastest post..The coda and cadence
I think my fav. is your usage of fracking… lol