vacuums & dimes

yesterday, just as i was walking out the door a young guy comes running up to the door. i told him he was lucky because i'd run back in to grab something i'd forgotten. he wanted to give me a free can of air freshener if i listened to his presentation.

i guess he caught me at a weak moment. i thought i was being helpful to him because he said, "you don't have to buy anything, i get paid just to tell you about it."

so, feeling nice, i said, "you have 10 minutes."

he ran (literally RAN) across the street to his van & grabbed his boxes filled with kirby vacuum goods.

he really did try to hurry but all said & done it took him over 45 minutes. i was pretty impressed by the vacuum but kept telling him that i didn't have the money to purchase one. he of course countered with a fabulous payment plan with 0% down.

i firmly said, "no, i told you when you came in that i couldn't buy one today."

for part of the machine's demonstration he asked to use one of my dimes. he vacuumed it up & then showed me how the vacuum shoots it into the little "piggy bank" instead of sucking it clear into the bag. nice. he hands me back my dime & it's totally bent.

of course now i understand why he asked to use my dime rather than use his own. he also asked to use my cell phone to call his "boss" to come to get him. i also told him that i'd taken my kids to the sitter so i could go run errands so, adding it all up it probably cost me about $5.50 or more to listen to his sales pitch.

i left him standing on my front sidewalk beside his 2 big boxes out in 50 mph wind waiting for his ride.

i do wonder how many people actually buy them on the spot. i have a really hard time offering grace to someone who is trying to "bully" me into buying something i don't really need when i wasn't even shopping to begin with.

hopefully i learned my lesson about listening to nice guys with a sales pitch.