the kirby story.

First order of business - Sorry for the lack of a post for so long. You see, I usually get my ideas on what to write from my pictures. And I haven't had a working camera for the past three weeks. I haven't taken a picture in three weeks. THREE WEEKS. Which pretty much means the past three weeks of my childrens' lives are gone forever. No memories. Gone. This is difficult for me. But a camera (a fancy camera actually) has been purchased and will be arriving shortly. Hooray for Team Cowan.

Now on with the post.

I'm not a clean freak. I don't scrub my house often. I do the every day kind of things, and everything else is pretty much on an "absolutely necessary" or "my mother-in-law is coming" basis. I wouldn't consider our house dirty or anything. But I could be in denile. I should probably have people over more often. I would be more inclined to scrub if we were having a party or something. I'll add that to my to-do list. "More parties." Done.
So with my lack of cleaning, and my disgusting carpeted kitchen, and the dog, and the messy boys, you can imagine my excitement when a Kirby salesman came to the door offering to shampoo any room in my house completely free. Excellent. Obviously we are in no situation to be able to spend $2000 on a vacuum, so all I'd have to say is, "No, we don't want to buy your vacuum. Now let me show you to the kitchen." Easy, right? I made sure to warn the guy that it would be unbelievably dirty. He was as nice as could be and assured me that that's what he was there for.
"No really," I said. "It's going to be REALLY dirty."
"No problem," he said.
Then he started to vacuum. He stopped after just a few seconds and pulled a small white circle of paper out of the vaccum and said, "Wow. You weren't kidding." He set it down on the floor and asked me how I felt about it.
"I told you it would be dirty," I said.
"Yeah. But that's really dirty," said the Kirby Guy.
Me: "I told you it would be really dirty."
Kirby Guy: "Why is it so dirty?"
Me: "Because I don't like vacuuming."
Kirby Guy: "Does this make you want to vacuum?"
Me: "Kind of. I guess. But not really."
Kirby Guy: "Do you see how dirty it is??"
Me: "I'm not afraid of dirt. It's not hurting me."
Kirby Guy: "....."
At that point he continued vacuuming. And every few seconds he would turn it off and pull out another disgusting pad of filth. He lined our entire kitchen with them. Each one just as nasty as the last. He kept making remarks about how gross it was, asking what I had against vacuuming. It's not that I don't vacuum. It's just that, when you plan on ripping something out and throwing it away, the grossness of it could really motivate you to get on the ball and actually rip it out. I'm not going to take care of 30 year old indoor/outdoor carpet that I hate and plan on replacing with tile. Come on.
It was an interesting sales pitch though. I certainly wasn't expecting it. "Wow, you're really gross. Like, really. Like, I want to throw up right now. Want to buy my vacuum cleaner?? Sign here." Good one. (Ok, he wasn't that offensive. But you can imagine.) I just kept laughing at him. I have a tendancy to laugh when someone is trying to sell me something. I can't help it.

Anyways, so the guy was there for an hour before his boss showed up, I'm guessing, to seal the deal. He shaved a few hundred dollars off the price saying things like, "I'm really not supposed to do this. I won't make anything off this sale..." More laughter from me. He told us about their excellent payment plan and how we could stretch it out over a year. "Dude. We're not going to buy a vacuum that we have to make payments on. It's just not something we do. The only thing we're making payments on is our house." That's when it got really awkward. He started looking around the room and said "How about your TV? In the basement, right?"
"Uh... Our TV cost us $100 6 years ago and it works great."
"How about your cars?"
"Bought and paid for."
"Impressive computer."
"Store credit from my husband's parent's store."
"........... That's a really nice washing machine in there. I sure wish I had one like that. How about we make a trade?!"
"You want my washing machine?"
"Sure! Front loaders are really nice! And expensive! My vacuum for your washer. What do you think??"
"Well, does your vacuum suck poop out of cloth diapers? No? Then no thanks. Did you really just make that offer???"
"Well, if you're not going to do it for you, what about for your child??" (pointing to Max)
"Eh, more dirt makes for a stronger immune system. We're not worried about it."
"Don't you know about SIDS? SIDS is caused by the dead skin cells and dust mites in your mattresses. Would you do it for your baby?"
It was at this point that we should have kicked him out. Literally. But we didn't. I rolled my eyes and didn't listen to him anymore. He was obviously a liar. A salesman. A rat.
A little while after that I guess he'd finally figured it out that there was nothing he could say to make us want to spend $1000 dollars on a vacuum. He hussled out the door once he realized it. It was about time. It had been 2 1/2 hours. We had been insulted, schmoozed, bargained with, lied to, and insulted again. It was awesome. It gave me and Zach tons of material to rant over after they left. I love a good mutual rant. Marital bonding at it's best.
But I think my favorite thing that came out of the whole situation was this picture of Quinn - As if me telling them that no, we weren't scared of dust mites feeding off of our dead skin cells in our bed wasn't convincing enough:
Our son had peed his pants and was now sitting on the kitchen table.

End of story.

Please note that I did NOT know that he had peed his pants when I took this picture. And the table received a thorough bleaching afterwards.