Kirby? That's not a name, that's a vacuum cleaner!

A generic adult female is trapped in her bedroom for over an hour.

Last night, just after dinner, as I was settling onto my bed to take a brief breather, the doorbell rang. Generic adult husband, who had just put on a McCartney CD and started doing the dishes, answered it. I heard voices of discussion and the unknown voice said, “OK. Great—I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I wondered what was going on, so I went out to ask GAH. He said, “That was a guy offering to clean our furniture for free. I asked him what the catch was and he said that there wasn’t one, he was just in the neighborhood cleaning furniture to get the word spread. He said it would only take 5 minutes and we get our furniture cleaned for free.” My poor gullible husband is too nice. I told him that I would be hiding in the bedroom because I didn’t want to listen to the sales pitch, which I was sure was forthcoming.

The bedroom was my prison for not five minutes, as the guy promised, but for the length of over two CDs—McCartney’s latest (the title of which I cannot recall), They Might Be Giants “Lincoln” album, and the first song of a Christmas album, which was soon changed over to James Taylor. I sat in my room and refused to come out. I did hear the salesman ask GAH “if the wife was around” and my husband said, “She won’t come out. She’s resting.” I was fuming. I couldn’t rest because there was a complete stranger in my house, wasting my husband’s precious dish-washing time! How was the kitchen going to get clean if he was sitting there watching some self-described “farm boy from Iowa” sprinkle baking soda and topsoil onto the carpeting and then make it disappear with a wave of his magic vacuum hose?

And guess how much Iowa farm boy wanted for his machine? First of all, consider a cheap Bissell from Target—which we own—is $70. Yes, it’s cheap. I know it’s not getting all the microscopic dirt up—heck, sometimes it doesn’t even suck up the stuff I can see. Yes, my carpet and furniture are dirty and will someday have to be replaced because it’s wearing out. The whole REASON that I have a disgusting carpet is NOT because I don’t own the vacuum that my son said took ten minutes just to unpack (my son watched because he loves vacuum cleaners), but because I have five children and two cats! So I was thinking, as I overheard the pitchman going into verbal paroxysms of joy over his hose and canister (and if that’s not an innuendo, I don’t know what is), what, like $500 maybe? $700? Nope, not even close, sisters. $60 a month FOR THREE YEARS. $60 times 12 months is $720. $720 times 3 years is **GASP** $2160!!!!!!!! For a freaking glorified broom, lint brush, and dustrag! He kept telling my husband stories of people on food stamps who bought this vacuum because it was so wonderful and money-saving! I might agree that it does a really good job, but does it do $2090 worth of a better of a job than my $70 Bissell Clean-view Bagless? To quote movie star and master of the English language, Will Smith, “Oh, HELL, no!”

I had to laugh, though, when Mr. Iowa was telling GAH about how much money we could save on carpet replacement if we bought his vacuum and my husband said, “We don’t like this carpet. We’d rather have the new carpet than a new vacuum.” Unfortunately, that comment did nothing to dissuade or discourage the salesman. My husband, in my opinion, was way too nice in letting the man ramble on. I wouldn’t have even let the man in to clean the furniture. And even if I did, after 10 minutes I would have said, “Your five minutes ended five minutes ago. I am really busy so you’ll have to go.” Maybe I should have gone out there, but I didn’t want to be witchy in front of my husband. Besides, GAH let the guy in, he could extricate himself from the sales pitch. Finally Mr. Iowa gave up (not soon enough, though, I was beginning to starve in the bedroom, having not a single Snickers bar in there with me. I’ll have to plan ahead next time). I did have faith in advance that my husband would not buy it. If I was worried about GAH falling for the hype, I would have marched out there and dragged FarmBoy out the door by his hose.

Get this: when he finished packing up his vacuum, he asked if he could hang out downstairs and catch a few minutes of the 4th (and ultimately FINAL--Yay BoSox!) game of the World Series because his ride wasn’t back to pick him up yet. I almost bought the machine right then and there to vacuum up the unwanted, hard-to-get-rid-of sediment that had just deposited itself on my basement couch. It would have been worth every penny.

Comments

[Jerilyn]

I know I told you this already, but we have a Kirby. It was left to us by my in-laws, but seeing as how we only have one room in our entire house that has carpet (and 3-kids-and-4-dogs-and-we-never-take-off-our-shoes-bad carpet, at that) it's kind of a waste.

In addition to the Kirby, they left us an Oreck canister vacuum and a Bissel carpet cleaner and of the three, I love the Oreck the most, because that baby can not only pick up small children, it will SUCK SPIDERS INTO THE DEPTHS OF HELL WHERE THEY BELONG.

[jo]

My grandmother who had Osteoporosis and other ailments bought a three story condo. Whatever. She lived on the main floor and the top floor and bottom floor were furnished, but really only used for guests. She had a vacuum on each floor and a cleaning girl who came in once a week. This woman must have weighed 100 pounds soaking wet and was about 5'0" tall.
When Grandma passed away we were going through the house and found the three vacuums. One ws an old electrolux, one was a Bissell and one was the evil, evil Kirby. WE tried to move it, it barely budged, we tried to lift it up. That thing must have weighed at least 50 - 60 pounds. It is like a lead weight. It comes with a VHS tape and a Book (!!) that tell you how to use it. In going through her paperwork we found the receipt. We almost wanted to find that evil man who came to the house of an old lady and sold her that horrid beast. We always tell people to never get a Kirby and we could never figure out how that teeny, tiny cleaning lady could maneuver that pig.
Since Mom knows how much it cost we brought it up to the summer house in Maine where it hogs up an entire closet. WE argue when it is time to vacuum over who gets the job of touching that thing....

*rant over*

[GAF]

I shoulda marched out of the room and slugged Mr. Iowa for all those old ladies who fell victim to the Kirby sales hypnosis, uh, I mean pitch. We did have a Kirby when I was growing up and it was a heavy monster, but it lasted nearly forever and did a good job. However, I won't say that it saved on carpet replacement (our salesman was BIG on pitching this argument) because after 10 years, orange shag just grates on the nerves and you need to replace it even it is still in good shape.

[Lisa]

I had a kirby that we bought at the thrift store when we were first married. The damn thing would not die. I would try to kill it, because I could not justify buying a new one while that one still lived. I'd suck up shoe laces and old rags. Would not die.

Finally this year when we got our rebate check from cosco, I went out and shamelessly spent it on a bagless Hoover. I love it. And the kirby lives in the garage to clean out the cars. I'll probabaly still have it when I die.

[GAF]

Hopefully you don't have the "Christine" of vacuum cleaners. Things that refuse to die have a habit of coming back and wreaking horrible, scary, Stephen-Kingish revenge on those that try to kill them.

(My comments may have been influenced by scary movies)

[Firebyrd]

My husband worked as an office manager for a Kirby distributor for a while and was given an old Kirby by his boss. I like it lots, and given how much you can haggle them down, I'm hoping when it finally dies to get another. Given how long they last, it's worth the cost, because bird pellets cause a lot of wear on vacuums and ones from stores die in a year or two with us.

[devisenhandel]

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