Kirby Vacuums

As the kids & I were making our way home from a walk around the neighborhood about a week ago, we saw a woman leaving our driveway. We eventually crossed paths to find that she was a visiting Kirby Vacuum salesperson. She had some special little story as to why she absolutely had to have someone show us a vacuum that very night as she needed the “points” for the showing to get some award.

It was still fairly early, I had no other plans, and I thought it would be fine to have someone else vacuum my living room for me. Another salesperson showed up with the (very young) “manager” and a big box of Kirby supplies. The “manager” soon left to drop off or pick up another salesperson and we were left with a very young and nice female.

She used our old (12+ years) WindTunnel to vacuum the whole living room. The kids all watched as she hooked up the shiny new Kirby and vacuumed an area she’d already gone over once with our vacuum. Of course, dirt and carpet fibers showed up on her test pad.

After a few of these demonstrations with the accompanying sales speech, I asked the young woman to go over the EXACT same portion of carpet that she just vacuumed with the Kirby. She looked flustered for a minute, then quickly assured me that there would still be dirt and carpet fibers the second time because I hadn’t “vacuumed the carpet in a long time.” I assured her that not only do I vacuum regularly, but she had already gone over that area twice (once with my machine, once with the super-duper Kirby). Her reply?

“Oh, well, you haven’t done it with a GOOD machine.”

She went over the same area several times. Perhaps ten in total. The dirt and carpet fiber amount wasn’t going down fast enough for her, so she did less strokes over the same area or did less area for 3-4 times to show (seeming) progress. The last few times, however, she did keep the same number of strokes (five) and area and the amount of material was less (though not hugely noticeable) than what she originally got. My point was made and she understood that I wasn’t going to be taken in with the “this is a superior vacuum” line. It is a fine machine, but don’t tell me my machine is a piece of junk just because you are picking up stuff with yours after mine has gone over that area. Mine would pick up junk after yours had vacuumed the area, too.

My kids kept her peppered with questions the whole time and I had a leg up on her usual victims because I’d sat through a Kirby sales pitch before. In fact, I’d sat through several vacuum sales pitches before. I had a three-year-old quote from a local Kirby rep. on how much he was going to charge me.

My husband and I had discussed getting a Kirby when our basement is finished so the “old” vacuum would go downstairs and the Kirby would be kept upstairs. Our basement is still not finished, although it might be in the next three years. We don’t need two vacuums right now. I do eventually want a Kirby. I ended up writing a check for it that night.

However, I suffered buyers remorse almost immediately and slept poorly thinking of all the other things on our “buying wishlist” that are in front of an expensive vacuum that we don’t need. That, and something the salesperson said, bothered me. When I said I wanted to keep my old vacuum and use it downstairs. She offered to sell me a second Kirby for a considerably less amount of money if I bought the first at the quoted price. How could she do that unless the profit amount was absolutely obscene?

I sent in the “change my mind” slip the very next day. I received a call from the sales office when they received it. They asked what was wrong and I stated my reasons for deciding not to take it after all. They simply needed to return my check and pick up the machine. The lady on the phone asked what price would convince me to keep it. I gave a number lower than the price quoted for the second machine (if I’d have bought the first one for the huge, inflated value). She said she would work on it and call me back in a couple of days.

Two days later, she called back to offer me the machine for the same amount the salesperson at my house had offered to give me the second machine for. Keep in mind that this amount was $1000 less than the price quoted for the first machine and they were perfectly willing to accept the $1000 for only the one machine when faced with me returning it.

This bothers me very much. Someone came by today to pick up their machine. I never even turned it on and had every piece of paper and attachment they gave me in the same condition they gave them to me.

How can they look themselves in the mirror everyday?

Celebrating Earth Day as a Homeschooling Parent

So, yesterday was “Earth Day.”

One of the neighborhood kids was really surprised that we studied “caves and erosion” (one of my children’s summaries) in science today. He wanted to know, “Why didn’t you do Earth Day like we did?”

My husband and I gently asked him what “doing” Earth Day was like in school. He said that they studied “earth” stuff. He remembered that they all got (plastic? latex?) gloves from one of the people who work at the school and cleaned up the school yard at recess. Then, they made things out of the trash.

We pointed out that we study “earth” things every day we do science (except when we did Astronomy first semester this year – when we were studying the universe surrounding earth). We are especially doing “earth science” this semester and have found many of our topics in the last month are mirroring the public school’s first grade (and coincidentally also their eleventh grade) class science studies.

The kids went on to explain that we recycle every day – as does this child’s family. (He didn’t realize at first what we were talking about until we pointed out the sign his mother has about rinsing out the empty bottles before putting them in the bin.) We also do quite a bit of cleaning up every day – both inside & outside. Every day at our house is “earth day.” (I pointed out that every day at our house is Valentine’s Day as we are always trying to show our love for others. He looked at me blankly in reply.)

Having said that, I have to say that I am not one of those people who hypes “conservation.” I horrified some moms at the local library story time last summer when I said I was coming up with my own earth science curriculum because I didn’t want it to be filled with global climate change and recycling garbage. (They hesitatingly asked at what school I taught.) My oldest child is the biggest recycling freak there is. I certainly didn’t teach her to be that way!

You know, recycling isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Our local trash hauler throws away the recycling materials several times a month instead of sending out the dedicated truck. When I called them at the end of last year to inquire about this on-going practice which was causing my child to be upset (as she works so hard to make sure all the materials which can be recycled are in the proper bin and placed at the curb each week), they informed me that the “bottom” had dropped out of the recycling materials market. Their warehouse was full to bulging and they couldn’t sell the material at “any price.” They were hoping the market would turn around after the first of the year or they would request that people not put out recycling materials at all. They have not done this, so I would assume they have been able to off-load the material at some price this year.

On a conservation note, my husband and I measured the water amount used by our toilet (4.8 gals/flush), dishwasher (18.1 gals/run), and top load clothes washing machine (74.1 gals/load). Except for the toilet number, the others seem HUGE. We will continue to do more experimenting and measuring. I also have my father measuring their water usage per clothes washing load as they have one of those new super efficient front load washers. We will compare. I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.

School for Me

As part of keeping up my Professional Engineer’s license, I have to complete a certain number of professional development hours (PDH) each year (or licensing cycle). Accordingly, I jumped at the chance for a relatively inexpensive eight-hour educational class this month sponsored by one of the engineering organizations of which I am a member.

What was originally going to be a smaller group turned into over eighty people by the day of the event. I didn’t do my own homework on how long it would take me to get from my sleeping location the night before to the location of the class. Instead, I relied on someone else’s word. (BIG MISTAKE.) They indicated it would take 22 minutes, but to allow 30 for the trip. I was planning on leaving 45 minutes early, but ended up leaving ten minutes after my ETD (estimated time of departure). While I missed the huge traffic tie-up, I didn’t take the shortest alternate route and arrived at the campus five minutes late. I am kicking myself for being such a neo-Luddite and not owning a GPS unit of some sort. I couldn’t find the darn building where the class was being held! Fifteen minutes and 2 1/2 times around the campus later (and a stop to ask for directions, which were the same as I had originally received), I finally found the proper building. I was the last person to arrive and occupied the last chair – in the back – in an aisle. (I found out that others also had trouble finding the building, but they had planned better and were not as late as I.) On a side note, I timed my trip back through virtually no traffic and it took 32 minutes. So, the information I was given was faulty and I will check myself next time rather than rely on someone else.

I learned quite a bit, met some interesting people, and even interacted with an engineer whose wife homeschools their children. On one name tag, I recognized the name of a co-worker of my husband’s, so I took the risk that it wasn’t a like-named individual and introduced myself. He started out by not seeming to know who my husband was, even though they work together often. Then, he wasn’t interested in small talk, so I excused myself rather quickly.

My husband has since run into this individual and he admitted he was in a state of shock when we met me. He had “no idea” that I was an engineer, to say nothing of the fact that I had my P.E. license. He was apparently tongue-tied by this revelation.

I had to laugh. Most people who live around here who find out that I’m an engineer presume I work at my husband’s workplace. They are shocked to find out that I mostly stay at home and take care of children. (I do around two-to-three small “freelance” jobs a year.)

I need a few more PDHs by the end of the year, so my “school days” aren’t over yet.