Normally, I'd like to point the muzzle of a 12 ga shotgun at door-to-door salesmen out selling left-handed waffle turners or trying to save my soul. My soul was in trouble a long time ago, and I'm stingy, so ain't got much time for either beggars or bible thumpers.
But, circa 2011, one came by just at the right time. Our 3rd of 4th vacuum since 2006 had failed and I was getting real tired of replacing them at $200-$300 a pop. This dude shows up with a Rainbow vacuum. Immediately, because of the name alone, I was skeptical and ready to toss this dude of my yet created great front porch with the scratches left by FredEx and poor packaging by BXpanded. The missus says "let 'im in" so I decided to play nice in the sandbox with my very large bludgeon hidden from sight. She still has that effect on me to this day after 15 years of marriage.
The dude gives us his spiel while I'm still waiting for the price. Finally, he coughs up the number, which is $1300 bucks. I almost went spasmo retard on him, then the missus reminded me that we'd lost 4 "good" vacuums in the past 5 years at nearly $300 each, just from normal use in a house full of teenagers. I always get in the last words ("Yes dear"), so we signed up and got the new Rainbow Vacuum cleaner with the Super Deeeeluxe water filtration system and no bags. Wait a minute, this thing actually works! We found we could vacuum the house AFTER dusting and not leave a ton of chewed up carpet fiber or several pounds of teenage girl hair dander everywhere.
Fast forward nearly 10 years to yesterday, and the missus is cleaning out the bedroom of the youngest granddaughter that's been with us since she was 2 months old, getting it ready to repaint the room. That was no small chore, I tell ya. We were begging neighbors with half-full bins to let us use their waste bins. I was doing my shed upgrade thing outside, so was completely oblivious to the catastrophic failure of the Rainbow. She suddenly smelled something similar to a top-fuel dragster doing a burn-out to soften the tires, and came running outside to get me. Yep, belt on the power head is toast. Damn thing didn't last but 10 years. Hang on, that's the VERY first failure on the Rainbow, and by some strange twist of fate, there was a SPARE under the sole plate on the power head. Maybe the dude that sold it to me was actually selling a good product.
On occasion, I get a good stroke of luck that sometimes offsets the usual "Give it up dude" luck that I normally have. This was one of those days. The even better part of the story is, when I looked up the price for a replacement belt on the manufacturer's website, it was less than $3 for a replacement belt. I immediately ordered 2. I NEARLY ordered another water reservoir for it just because the original is stained and the parts were so inexpensive. I won't call 'em cheap, because of the initial purchase price.
But, circa 2011, one came by just at the right time. Our 3rd of 4th vacuum since 2006 had failed and I was getting real tired of replacing them at $200-$300 a pop. This dude shows up with a Rainbow vacuum. Immediately, because of the name alone, I was skeptical and ready to toss this dude of my yet created great front porch with the scratches left by FredEx and poor packaging by BXpanded. The missus says "let 'im in" so I decided to play nice in the sandbox with my very large bludgeon hidden from sight. She still has that effect on me to this day after 15 years of marriage.
The dude gives us his spiel while I'm still waiting for the price. Finally, he coughs up the number, which is $1300 bucks. I almost went spasmo retard on him, then the missus reminded me that we'd lost 4 "good" vacuums in the past 5 years at nearly $300 each, just from normal use in a house full of teenagers. I always get in the last words ("Yes dear"), so we signed up and got the new Rainbow Vacuum cleaner with the Super Deeeeluxe water filtration system and no bags. Wait a minute, this thing actually works! We found we could vacuum the house AFTER dusting and not leave a ton of chewed up carpet fiber or several pounds of teenage girl hair dander everywhere.
Fast forward nearly 10 years to yesterday, and the missus is cleaning out the bedroom of the youngest granddaughter that's been with us since she was 2 months old, getting it ready to repaint the room. That was no small chore, I tell ya. We were begging neighbors with half-full bins to let us use their waste bins. I was doing my shed upgrade thing outside, so was completely oblivious to the catastrophic failure of the Rainbow. She suddenly smelled something similar to a top-fuel dragster doing a burn-out to soften the tires, and came running outside to get me. Yep, belt on the power head is toast. Damn thing didn't last but 10 years. Hang on, that's the VERY first failure on the Rainbow, and by some strange twist of fate, there was a SPARE under the sole plate on the power head. Maybe the dude that sold it to me was actually selling a good product.
On occasion, I get a good stroke of luck that sometimes offsets the usual "Give it up dude" luck that I normally have. This was one of those days. The even better part of the story is, when I looked up the price for a replacement belt on the manufacturer's website, it was less than $3 for a replacement belt. I immediately ordered 2. I NEARLY ordered another water reservoir for it just because the original is stained and the parts were so inexpensive. I won't call 'em cheap, because of the initial purchase price.
