Today's illustrious, if potentially unlucky, band:

Neighbor Nadene and the Cleaning Machine

Brought to you by my neighbor Nadene and her cleaning machine.

Pros

• suction power
  
• water-washed air
  
• ethylene glycol (I think Mother Media has a great-aunt by that name.)
  
• silvery hi-tech grooviness
  
• the gift of meat
  

Cons

• that funny smell
  
• the dirty truth
  
• parts is parts
  
• pyramids is pyramids
  
• the price of purity
  

Summary

The 1950s are alive and well in the southern suburbs of the Media Metropolis. On Wednesday night, a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesperson came to Sensational Acres to demonstrate the latest in carpet cleaning technology.

A few weeks ago, I found in my mailbox a coupon entitling me to 5 lbs of free hamburger patties, or 5 lbs of free brats, or a free 12-pack of Pepsi or Coke. All I had to do was call the number on the flyer. Intrigued, I called. There would, of course, be a catch of some kind, but I've been trying to improve the protein level in my diet, and 5 lbs of free burgers seemed like a good place to start.

The catch was this: The person who delivered my gift would also ask for my opinion on a stain-removing appliance she was demonstrating. Right away, I knew that "opinion" was code for "agreement to purchase." Still, I figured it wouldn't take me long to just say no and go slap a patty on the George Foreman grill. We scheduled a showing for 6:00 Wednesday.

Well, 6:00 and then 7:00 came and went, leaving me to wonder, Where's the beef? I had to settle for vegetarian nachos for dinner. Finally at 8:00 the cats grew very interested in the front door. There on the porch stood Nadene. My cozy living room quickly got smaller as she unloaded a purse, a duffel bag, a rectangular box the size of a small suitcase and a cubical box about a yard on each side. Let the demo begin! And it did, after a second trip to the car for the Power Nozzle box, about the size of a bass guitar case, and a third trip later for the shampooing unit.

I should have counted the number of times Nadene used the words "filth" and "homemakers" in her presentation. June Cleaver was obviously the target audience, and the spiel-writers assumed that June had at least an hour and a half to devote to hearing it. That's how long it took, and Nadene wasn't just faffing about. She was constantly reading to me from laminated pages in her three-ring binder, fishing shiny new attachments out of the big box (4.5 end attachments, 3 hose-tubes) and turning the uber-vac on and off as she put each through its paces.

The product is one nifty multi-tool, let me tell you. The central suction unit squats over a water-filled base of clear plastic, the same kind from which football helmets are made. FILTH is inhaled through the front end and trapped by the water, which obligingly turns a disgusting grey, and only water-washed air issues from the back end. If you attach the hose, horsehair brush, crevice tool or Power Nozzle, you can use the unit as a conventional, albeit genetically superior, vacuum cleaner. However, if you just set it naked in the middle of the room and turn it on, it will still suck up your FILTHY atmosphere, scrub it, and eject nothing but pure clean goodness.

If you want to disinfect the air, too, you squirt a shot of green ethylene glycol into the water tank. If you don't want your house to end up smelling like a dentist's office, you also squirt in a hefty shot of fragrance, choosing among gardenia, mulberry, violet, vanilla and others. I chose violet. It came out much too strong and left my living room smelling like a dentist's sachet pillow for what little remained of the evening.

Then the actual carpet-vacuuming demonstration began, and with it the horror of confronting the FILTH in my home!! Inserting a scrap of white cloth between hose and nozzle to act as a filter, Nadene attacked a one-foot-square section of my carpet. In seconds she had sucked up a hairball the size of a hedgehog, along with about a pound of dirt and sand. I was properly disgusted, but Nadene confided that she'd seen much worse even in houses without pets. A couple more variations on this maneuver would have been enough to sell me on the vac . . .

. . . until she flipped to the laminated price page. This thing costs more than $1667 by itself and over $2000 when you add the Power Nozzle — which is sold separately, even though (or perhaps because!) it's the attachment you'd use most. Well, OK, since Nadene and I were friends by that time, she called her supervisor (at 9:15 p.m.), who authorized her to lower the price to $1668, essentially giving me the Power Nozzle for free. What a value! AND, if I was willing to Act Now and give her my old vacuum cleaner as a trade-in, she was also empowered to throw in the shampooing unit — which I must say did a dandy job of taking a very old stain out of a chair cushion.

Oh, and did I mention the incentives? Had I been willing to write down the names of just 10 of my friends and relatives, making them eligible to enter a drawing for a $100 shopping spree at the mall of their choice, I could have entered my own name to win a $500 shopping spree. And Nadene would have gotten $500, too, if I won. I'm sure those names wouldn't have been used for nefarious advertising purposes or anything, but you can all thank me right now for not writing any down. A pound of pistachios will do.

Also, if I found the price of the product beyond my means and didn't want to enter into a $66/month financing agreement (no interest for 90 days!), I might be granted the Rare Opportunity to work off my purchase by becoming a Nadene myself. Me, entering the homes of perfect strangers to tout the virtues of a vacuum cleaner that doubles as an air freshener? That idea was about as appealing as the gruesome swill in the vac's water chamber.

It was an interesting evening. Poor Nadene left empty-handed (except for the purse, duffel bag, rectangular box, cubical box, Power Nozzle box and shampooing unit). I, however, now have a small patch of really clean carpet and a partially cleansed chair cushion in my dental-violet-scented living room.

Oh yeah, and a box of burgers in the freezer.

**********

Service saga update: Keith just called. The part for my blower fan relay didn't make it onto this week's truck. But he hopes to lay hands on it early next week, and then we can schedule the actual repair. SIGH!