Another Real World Post

So...

David and I just had our first experience with an obnoxious salesman.

And for what it's worth, I am now thoroughly convinced that we make a perfect team.



A little background:

David and I have been looking to get some home-improvements done inside and outside over the summer. But so far, we have not been very successful. We've accepted that we're still new at being adults, and we're way ahead of most 21 year-olds, so we're okay with playing the "I'm a gonna" game for now, but we would still really like to look over our options and see what all we can actually accomplish before winter comes...



Let the story begin.

Enter: the search for an estimate to replace windows and siding.

David had a company come by at the beginning of summer to give an estimate, but they were not very professional and he was a little put off by them.

So, David's mom recently suggested that he call a different company that does a lot of advertising in this area and has a very good reputation.

And so he did.

At this point, David texted me to let me know that someone was coming to our house around 7pm tonight to give us an estimate for windows and possibly siding as well. He got home around 4pm and helped me tidy the house up a bit while we assured each other that it would be nice to have a good estimate done by a professional so that we would know whether or not we could afford new windows or siding right now. Simple, right?

Well, that's what the first estimator did. He came in, measured, left and called back with the price. David was put off by him because he did not seem very intelligent or professional, but it turns out that that guy was the most honest that you find in the real world. To put words in his mouth: "Look buddy, I'm not gonna put you through any bull shit. I'm probably going to charge you unfairly and all just like everyone else, but I figure why waste anyone's time if we're all crooked, right?"



Now, those of you who know David know that he is a very proud person. This means that David does not particularly like manipulative bastards (to put it lightly, says David).

Those of you who know Alyse might also know that she began a certain monthly cycle today that does not make her particularly tolerant of anyone (especially manipulative bastards).


Enter: a manipulative bastard.


At about 7 o'clock this evening, a well-dressed African American man of about 50 years of age arrived at our door. He brought with him several large 3-ring binders and then ran back out to his car to fetch an even larger suitcase filled with "demonstrative materials".

Manipulative bastard move #1: As he reached the top stair, he commented on our lovely carpeting and promptly removed his shoes.

Normally, you might consider this a compliment. However, when you also consider that the carpeting in our house is probably about 20 years old (and looks the part), it becomes fairly obvious that he is full of shit. The only people who would honestly come into our home and remove their shoes are people who know that my father spent a good amount of time cleaning the carpet when we moved in. Otherwise, it just looks like any other 20-year old white carpet (in other words, stained gray carpet). A very clean stained gray carpet, but still a friggin' stained gray carpet.



Upon seeing the materials, David commented to me that he was glad that this man was more prepared than the last person that came to give us an estimate (who showed up with a measuring tape and a pad of paper). But we both shortly began to realize that he was not prepared to help us... but rather to annoy us.


okay... manipulative bastard move #2:

The fucker brought a heat lamp.

Let me say that again:

A HEAT LAMP.


He then produced a little gadget that was supposed to measure heat and another that measured radiation reflecting off of the mini window panels that he held up to the heat lamp (oh dear God. I can't believe that he brought a heat lamp).

Oh, and did I mention that he placed the heat lamp (a friggin heat lamp!) so it was shining in David's eyes and in such a way that when the window panes reflected radiation, the radiation was reflected directly at me. Do you think I can sue if I get cancer in 20 years? hmm... maybe I should save his number. It might come in handy after all.



Okay okay. I know what you're thinking. If we knew this guy was such an idiot, why didn't we just tell him straight up that we weren't interested.

Well... funny thing that.

You see, this whole thing made me recall a situation that my parents encountered a little while ago with a window salesman (probably from the same company now that I think about it) who had come to give an estimate about windows and then got confused after his big talk when my dad told him he wasn't interested, at which point my dad forgot that he wasn't Tarzan... and that the sales guy wasn't a gorilla hunter.

And well... it's a good thing that my parents don't own a gun because my dad probably would have shot the guy... and then my mom probably would have shot my dad.

But anyway...


Considering that experience, about halfway through this guy's little talk (and after several shifty-eyed glances were shared between David and me), I stopped the guy.

I politely told him that we really appreciated him coming to speak with us and informing us about windows, but that all of the demonstrations he was giving us seemed to be proving that the windows his company sells were going to be far more costly than we could afford. I told him we simply did not have the funds to pay for such windows nor did we have the ability to take on anymore loans. He was not going to make a sale tonight. We appreciated his time and information. But we had no intention of misleading him and keeping him any longer than was necessary.


He then humbly reassured me that he simply wanted to fully inform us of our options, both with their company and with other companies. And if we decided to not go with their product today, that he hoped that we might consider them in the future. That he had gone through the trouble to bring all of his supplies for a demonstration. That he had traveled all the way from Maryland to speak with us tonight. And that all he asked from us was our time and possibly a glass of water before he left.

AND THEN HE PULLED OUT THE HEAT LAMP.



Okay, so then, after maybe another half hour of bull shit about how President Obama was doing this and that to improve energy usage and how by 2015 we would probably need these windows anyway (which is silly because if everyone needs to replace their windows in 2015, the cost will then have to come down significantly or no one will be able to afford the windows and the point will be moot) and blah blah blah (to be honest, I stopped listening and began fantasizing about throwing this man out of our house. I even thought about calling my dad to come over for a nice chat with him. Worse, it even occurred to me that I might get up and pretend to answer my phone and respond to a fake emergency. "Oh my GOD! Grandpa's in the hospital! Sir, you need to leave right now. Come on, David. We can show him out as we leave.")

But, just as my evil fantasies were about to transform into a reality, the man turned off his heat lamp and stopped his talk and suggested that we now measure the windows so that he could give us an estimate.

Oh goody. Now the part where we find out that we can't afford the windows which I already told the bastard. yippee.


Manipulative bastard move # 3:

As he looked over the windows, he realized that eight of our twelve windows are very large and low to the ground, which means that we would need them to be tempered, which he explained would "unfortunately bring up the cost quite a bit".

You know, because he totally couldn't have figured out that they were big windows from looking at them when he first walked in. It was suddenly a big "unfortunate" surprise.

So he measured and jotted down the measurements on an official-looking piece of paper. Then he sat down and punched numbers into a calculator.

Manipulative bastard move # 4:

He then asked David and me to write down what we thought the estimate would be. And to write down what we would prefer the cost to be. I told him flat out that we had already received an estimate from another company that was $4,000 to replace all our windows and that we had no intention of paying more than $4,000 and that he was not going to make a sale tonight as I had warned him before.

David wrote down a guessed estimate of $1700 per window and a preferred estimate of ~ 0 dollars.

Those of you with an education might know that the symbol ~ means "approximately". Yes, I know. David is childish. But oh so cute. And I thought it was pretty funny considering I was ready to stab the man.

okay... so he looked at David's estimates and said, "oh! That's pretty good! You said it should cost between $1700 and $2000 each and, if my math is right, it will cost about $24,000 to do all the windows."

That's right, folks. He mistook ~0 for 20.


And then he proceeded with manipulative bastard move #5:

Once we explained to him (again) that we were not spending any money with him today, he told us that that was fine and that he was going to pack up right after he called his manager because it is company policy to call his manager at the end of a session with a client to explain to his manager how the session went and so that his manager could ask us a few questions.

We figured maybe it was going to be a survey on the salesman's performance. But nope. He actually continued trying to sell shit to us by "talking" to his boss and repeating to us the words of his "boss". And went as far as to tell us that his boss said that he did not understand why we would want to lose so much money on energy bills in the long term just to save money in the short term. And that they had payment plans for people just like us. Obviously, he doesn't realize that the economy is in trouble right now because "people just like us" listened to manipulative bastards just like him.

After several rounds of this "telephone" argument, I told him that I was finished with his game, his tactic wasn't working and that it was time for him to leave.

I repeated myself calmly several times, David repeated me several times, and the man repeated me several times into the phone to his "boss" and then I told him that I was finished with the conversation, that I was leaving the room and that he was going to be leaving the house soon.

I then took his glass of water from him (which he whined to have back like a big baby because he was still thirsty).
I gave back the glass of water. And he hung up the phone. After which he responded with "I'm sorry about that. But you know how managers are."

Ha ha ha! Yeah... the imaginary manager that lives in my phone is a real asshole too.
Oh man. And don't even get me started on how awesome the heat lamp I carry with me everywhere is.



At that point, broken, he apologized and began packing up his things.


End of story, right?

Oh no no no.

Tonight, I had the pleasure of witnessing the true awesomeness that is David.


You see, the man made the mistake of mentioning computers because I sarcastically told him not to worry about us because we, in a few years, when David's making big bucks in the computer industry, will have no qualms with purchasing windows for our home without any loans.

"Oh?" he asked.

"What do you do?" he asked.


OH HO HO HO! IF YOU ASK, YOU SHALL RECEIVE, MOTHER FUCKER.

David kept that man for at least another half hour offhandedly chatting about computers.

The poor bastard actually awkwardly tried to head for the stairs several times, mentioning that he should be leaving now.

It was fabulous.


And so, just to make the situation even more awkward for the fool...

I scooped out the ferret's litter box. Ran the garbage disposal. Started up the dishwasher...

Oh and then I poured myself a nice glass of scotch and sat down in the living room, staring at them talking and began to write this post as David finally let the man leave.


Like I said, we make a great team.

Distubring but very very funny

I'm a Gonna Post -- Revised

This is a list I put together of the different things that David and I wanted to do with the townhouse. Feel free to make comments or suggestions.

DAVID w/ a little help from Ty and our Dads ^_^

INSIDE : while awaiting approval for outside maintenance

Plumbing/Dining room ceiling -- *& possibly remodel bathroom in bedroom

• move dining room set into living room
• remove ceiling patches and/or tub upstairs to get at the plumbing
• fix plumbing -- *review possibility of remodeling upstairs bathroom if it is necessary in order to fix plumbing
• fix electrical wiring
• replace ceiling
• **paint ceiling
• replace light fixture
• clean carpets
• move dining room set back into dining room

OUTSIDE

Remove trees/bushes from front yard and backyard (no approval needed)

Upper Level Deck

• Alyse needs to bring home deck books from the library for a model. Also checkout this website (lockdry.com)

-White or Gray (whichever best matches/contrasts the siding) --> which HOA-approved color matches this best? White Ready Mix?

-Thick lumber as base ~ $7.00 per plank

-Do we want to use lockdry's railings as well? Or buy railings from Office Depot?

• make appropriate measurements (from second level to edge of yard + yard width = perimeter, length x width = area -- Deck will be smaller than this. Decide how big we want the deck to be: probably half the size of the yard -- look at other decks in the neighborhood)
• get plans from Home Depot
• submit all plans for approval to the HOA and the city before beginning
• Have Miss Utility come and mark the ground
• hope like hell the boys know what they are doing >.<

Lower Level Deck

• Checkout Fibron Decking from Home Depot

~$6.00 per plank

• make appropriate measurements (from backdoor to edge of yard + yard width = perimeter, length x width = area, how high above the ground do we want it?)
• get plans from Home Depot
• submit all plans for approval to the HOA and the city before beginning
• Have Miss Utility come and mark the ground
• Build deck

Siding (siding and windows will probably be done together in walls: three weekends = one side of house per weekend)

• print off color options (http://www.cannonridgehomes.info/Paint.htm) (http://www.myperfectcolor.com/)

-Kennett Square, French Silver, Silvery Moonlight, Quiet Light, Grey Nuance, Heather Grey

• choose color for siding and then color for shutters, front door, etc (take into consideration the color options for the deck -- try to match siding with deck)

-shutters = White --> which of the HOA-approved colors matches this best? White Ready Mix?

-siding = Champagne, Beige, Silver --> which of the HOA-approved colors matches this best? Silvery Moonlight?

-Traditional cut? vs. Semi-Bead, Narrow Plank, Dutchlap

• make appropriate measurements (estimate amount of siding needed based on square footage of house --> height of house, width of each of the walls, subtract the windows)
• get plans from Home Depot
• submit all plans for approval to the HOA before beginning
• order materials (probably from Home Depot)
• put up siding (boys will probably do this themselves using system Ralph found)
• Return whatever siding is not needed
• Replace garage door (white or a color that matches siding)

Windows (siding and windows will probably be done together in walls: three weekends = one side of house per weekend)

• Decide what type of windows to use -- take into consideration tax breaks based on energy efficiency (Low E double hung) - Brands: American Craftsman vs. Andersen, possibly no crosshatches, ~$200 per window
• See if we can get siding and windows at the same time at a discounted price -- probably from Home Depot
• patch up rotting wood/holes of the two big window frames out front with good wood
• cover wood of big windows with vinyl -- color will probably be same color as siding or white
• look at glass doors to replace the long windows in the living room that will lead to the deck (~$800 each)
• make appropriate measurements (number and sizes -- height and width of windows)
• get plans from Home Depot
• submit all plans for approval to the HOA before beginning
• install windows along with siding (look into new inside trim if we can't get it off without breaking it)
• look into tax breaks for energy-efficient windows (homedepot.com/taxcredit)

Fence

• make appropriate measurements (from backdoor to edge of yard + yard width = perimeter. Also look into having the fence go around the side yard -- look at neighbor's fence. how high do we want it? What type?)

- ~$40 per square for vinyl

• get plans from Home Depot
• submit all plans for approval to the HOA and the city before beginning
• Have Miss Utility come and mark the ground
• Put up the fence

ALYSE w/ a little help from Mom and Trevyn and Alexa ^_^

INSIDE

Clean inside (before boys start messing with stuff)

• bedroom
• princess room
• guest room
• bathrooms
• dining room
• kitchen
• living room (thanks Davie)
• computer room
• downstairs hallway
• downstairs closets
• garage

Replace air vents (with Davie's help)

Paint walls/rooms (while boys are messing with stuff)

• living room ceiling (repaint)
• bedroom doors and trim
• guest room
• upstairs hallway
• mid-level hallway
• kitchen
• **dining room ceiling
• downstairs hallway, ceiling, closet doors

OUTSIDE

Gardens (after boys are finished messing with stuff)

Small fence out front (~$45/section for vinyl)

FOR LATER

New front door

New light fixtures

*Remodel bathroom in bedroom

Fix stairs/floors

Stair railings

Replace carpets

Add wood floors

Remodel kitchen

Convert downstairs closet into bathroom

Replace Computer room glass doors

Grow plants around fence (bamboo, etc)

Replace insulation in attic space and install plywood

Move extra stuff into attic space

Remove all of our stuff from the shop

Remodel garage

Add borders to rooms

Pixelated David

So, I was looking at a website of a professor I had a few semesters ago, and he had a really cool little pixelized picture of himself, and I showed David and he got a little mopy because he didn't have anything cool like that. So, here's what I came up with. Which do you like better?

David # 1

David # 2

F*** My Life

I discovered a silly site at http://www.fmylife.com

It is basically a twitter type site where people put small snippets of why their lives are f*cked. Sound depressing? Not really. Actually, most of them are pretty hilarious, so if you're feeling bad about your life, I would highly recommend that you check out the site.