So I get home from TaiChi last night at about 9:00 to find a strange man standing in my (messy) living room talking on my phone. Odd.
Being quick of eye and mind, I immediately notice the cardboard boxes stacked around him with the word "Kirby" blazoned on them.
"Hi Marla. Kirby. You let them in!"
Yup, our sweet (though messy) home had been invaded by Kirby salesmen!
It's my own damn fault. I expressed interest in their vacuum -- I wanted to see how it was put together, check out the craftsmanship.
It's a very nice machine. Very powerful, good suction, decent features, good access to the airways.
Can't say I like their sales tactics, though. It's the classic "shame you into buying their machine" system. The suck endless dust out of your carpet and scatter the little dust-covered filter pads around to illustrate how DIRTY you are.
They use your vacuum to suck an area of carpet as clean as it will get, and then use their vacuum to illustrate how DIRTY it still is! Dirty carpets, oh my god. Actually, I hope to remove the carpet entirely and go to wood.
They suck skin cells and dust mites out of your mattress, to show how you are wallowing in DIRT all of your life! I'm replying that I don't mind -- it keeps my immune system happy and excercised.
How can you live in such filth?
They try to get you to agree to their definitions. "How do you tell if your current vacuum is broken? When it stops removing the dirt from your carpet? Look! It's not removing all of your dirt! You must buy a real vacuum that actually works!"
I, of course, just wanted to look at their machine. Professional interest. My definition of broken was "when it makes ugly noises or no longer removes the cat fluff." My Dyson, which I think is the best consumer-quality vacuum you can find, works like a charm for my needs.
They were all like, "our vacuum works so much better than yours!" My reply was, damn, I hope so. It costs $2,000. It's a professional grade machine (really) and mine's a $300 (well, $500 with all the attachments and stuff) consumer device.
Love the machine, hate the sales pitch.
For $2,000, though, I would rather live with dirt and buy a build-your-own Gorilla kit:
http://www.boneclones.com/SC-028S-D.htm
Or perhaps a vacuum de-bubbler and spin caster from Rio Grande, plus a bunch of other jewelery-making supplies.
Or perhaps that metal lathe I want. Or a new NC mill! Ooooh... tools and toys. Cleanliness is overated, anyway.
Posted by Edwin at November 30, 2004 08:41 AM