On a Scale of 1-10

- or -

Why Anna is a sucker.


Last Wednesday we were both off of work together and decided to take a walk. Someone had expressed interest in letting me bottle feed some calves, so we were going to walk out to their ranch. We put some raviolis in the microwave for a quick lunch, but the doorbell rang. We assumed it was our Ranch Host.

It was not. It was a young-ish woman with a candle in her hand. She mumbled something about being from somewhere in Western Montana, and wanting practice for a business thing cleaning the floor. Stephan looked at me. I looked at him, hoping he would step in and say something like "we're on our way out." But he didn't. And here is where I'm a sucker.

She and a little friend walked in with a large vacuum cleaner, a Kirby (even their website is designed to sucker you in). She spent 10 minutes assembling it while Stephan and I ate lunch, and watched the time tick away. We were supposed to be at the ranch in 30 minutes

The next 45 minutes went badly.

"On a scale of 1-10, how clean do you want your house to be?"

Ugh. Here's a fact. We have hard wood floors. We have one area rug that's about 5'x8'. That's it. It was a wonderful machine. Pretty. With a great warranty. After she was talking for about 20 minutes Stephan stepped in with, "So how much does this thing run?"

"Well... um... my manager will be here in a minute to make you an offer, but, um, they are... um... the cost is $2160".

Cue jaws dropping.

Cue us getting our hiking boots on when the Ranch Host calls us wondering where we are.

Cue "Manager" arriving and asking us if there was any amount of money he could say that would get us to buy the vacuum. "Will it cook dinner twice a week?"

"No."

"Have a nice day!"