Service status quo, “beast” of a deal on an Animal
So yesterday a pool service guy from Pinch-A-Penny was supposed to come out to fix the leak we have at the pool heater. Nobody showed up, nobody called to say they weren’t coming out. Before moving to Florida I would find this behavior from a service organization pretty unusual. However since moving to the sunshine state time and again we have experienced piss poor service, starting off with the fiasco I had with Sprint on day one. For some reason people down here don’t think it is a big deal to not keep appointments. So now today I get to call back today and complain, something I have become quite good at.
My mom told me that 
she was going to buy a new vacuum cleaner since the one we gave her years ago wasn’t working very well. I told her that she once again could have our vacuum. There is nothing wrong with it but we had been talking about getting a Dyson for a long time so we figured it was a good time to do it. We had one of those Bed, Bath & Beyond 20% off coupons that Ali just happened to have on her. Ali left me an excited email saying I had to call her to hear about the great deal she got. She scored an OUTSTANDING deal.
Dyson’s are expensive, the model on the left is the Animal Ball model which normally retails for $600!!! This model supposedly is designed for pet hair as well as having the unique BALL which allows the vacuum an amazingly easy turning radius. Well when Ali walked in the store what was in front of her on a clearance table but one of these beauties! Evidently Dyson is rolling out a new model so these were on clearance, PLUS it was a floor model so she got an additional discount, PLUS she was able to still use the 20% off coupon! She walked out of there saving over %50 off the retail price! She was quite proud of her deal and rightly so.
I played with the Animal last night for a little bit. Even though I had just run the steam cleaner the night before which does a good job of pulling stuff out from deep within the carpet, the Animal was able to pull out a surprising amount of additional crud. The ball is really cool. With a twist of the wrist you are able to wrap around a corner in one continuous motion. The way everything fits together and comes apart is very well engineered and “cool”. The filter in the unit is reusable and washable, another nice feature. For $600 the Dyson Animal should be extremely cool and it indeed is. For $280 it almost feels like stealing. It will make me almost look forward to vacuuming.
Last night I continued my better use of time by cleaning the water equipment and then setting up the replacement fountain pump in our little pond. Ali surprised me by skipping out of ballet class which would have kept her out until after 9 and instead coming home early to hang out with me which was nice. We laid on the couch together watching Big Brother.