Topical Guide 700
Mark Dorset
Salesmanship: Financing: Time Payment Plans
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 26:
“Oh, Jesus, what a farce! A resort motel. You’re trying to buy a resort motel by stealing a pair of earrings now and then, taking a dollar out of the cash register, adding an extra dessert to somebody’s dinner check? God, it’s like my mother buying her vacuum cleaner on time by putting quarters in the handle.”
I know from personal experience that there was such a vacuum cleaner. It was marketed by door-to-door salesmen. My mother bought one. I used to use it sometimes. I’d claim that I used to do some serious vacuuming with it if I thought I could get away with it, but I’d be closer to the truth if I admitted to playing with it. I think I might have been nine or so. The vacuum she bought might have been a Kirby Model 513. Part of the salesman’s pitch was the easy payment plan. A payment was due each month, but to ease the burden of paying, the user could put a quarter into a slot at the back of the long cylindrical handle each time the vacuum was used. When the month was up, you could remove the handle and harvest the quarters to make the payment. MD
(Note to Self: This is an experience that you should include in The Topical autobiography of Mark Dorset.)
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When I was 14 I was hired by a neighbor to clean an office building every Saturday. It was my first job. I used a Kirby vacuum cleaner similar to the one in the illustration. I learned to take it apart and replace the rubber drive belt. It was one of the only machines I have ever understood. Years later I used a Kirby vacuum cleaner in a performance art piece to draw grinning idiot energy down from the air.