And that they kept insisting on calling some mysterious shadow figure to see if they could score us a better deal.
And, my God — the horror.
I can never usually remember my dreams.
This was different.
The lingering aroma of carpet shampoo burned my nostrils. My skin felt like it was crawling with mites and fleas and crabs from laying on a soiled mattress.
I was a sweaty mess, and it scared me. “Good God, man, quit sweating,” I urged myself. “You’ll only lose more dead skin cells.”
I was panicking.
And that’s when I saw her, coffee-cup in hand.
My wife. My rock.
“Please,” my eyes begged, “hold me.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” she informed me, not a whiff of compassion in her voice. “You let them in.”
Oh. Yeah.
About that. Sorry.
By the time our doorbell rang that fateful night, my wife already was ticked off at me — the night before, I’d given our 16-month-old son his very first haircut.
You see, he’d developed a nice rat-tail that was starting to cascade down his back like some dude trying to pick up chicks in an Iroc-Z circa 1987.
She wanted it gone — and she’d do the honors.
Snip.
“Now it’s all raggedy,” I complained. “You gotta use the clippers.”
Easier said than done.
Trying to trim up a toddler with clippers is like trying to style the fur of a squirrel.
He just kept squirming. I just kept going up.
“Just even out, damn it,” I kept thinking.
But before I knew it, my wife was in tears.
“You took our beautiful baby boy,” she cried, “and made him look like a mentally ill person.”
“What are you talking about?” I shot back. “He looks like a cute little monk.”
And, well, that’s pretty much how that night ended.
So the next night, I was looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with my wife and our son, Corky, when the doorbell rang.
Our doorbell rings so infrequently, so it’s both a treat and a nuisance when it does.
You never know who’s going to be standing there — it could be someone selling meat out of a Dodge Neon.
This night, however, we were greeted by two people selling Kirby vacuums.
Thanks, but no thanks, my wife said.
And then it happened — the more experienced salesman explained that his trainee gets paid by just doing a short demonstration.
She could come in, clean a rug and split.
Man.
How could I deny this poor woman a paycheck, and her children food?
I caved.
But I soon knew things weren’t going to be as simple — or as quick — as they made it sound when it took about 25 minutes for her to unload the vacuum and the attachments.
At first, I’ll admit, watching her vacuum our floors, our walls, our ceiling, our ceiling fan and our mini-blinds was actually kind of fun.
Hey, as a neat freak myself, this was entertainment.
But, considering I was probably the only kid in college who kept a can of Pledge in their dorm room, I also presented this woman with somewhat of a challenge.
“I’ve never done a neat freak’s house,” she confessed, sounding almost frightened, which to me sounded more like, “I’ve never been in a pedophile’s house before.”
Each of her demonstrations was supposed to convince us that our home was filthy — and that our special-needs son deserved better.
But time after time, she’d go to show us the little pad that’s supposed to collect dirt — thereby scaring you into buying a $2,000 vacuum — and there wouldn’t be much there.
“What are you, obsessive-compulsive?” she asked out of frustration.
“Yes, actually,” I replied.
And so it went.
The next morning at work, a co-worker asked why I didn’t just tell them to leave.
Easy for her to say. She’s originally from Detroit. She could’ve beaten them to death and thought nothing of it.
But my wife and I are originally from Iowa, which means we’re almost like Canadians.
We just sit and take it. With a smile.
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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