Dreams Can Save You Money

Yesterday I confessed to being enchanted with the ear vacuum. I dreamed about it last night. Is my life boring, or what!

I had a restless night, as He Who Tows had a late night, towing a car to Kansas City. He got home around 2:30. I know this because, in his efforts to NOT wake me, he woke me. With his cell phone that he was using as a light source. He loses flashlights with great regularity. Nothing like being in a cozy bed in a state of half sleep and have a light shined in your face. I guess he was making sure it was me. Like, maybe, I had been replaced with an alien.

I had not been asleep for very long. I must have gotten too warm and stuck my foot out from under the covers, causing Martha, the boy cat, to "groom" my toes with his sandpaper tongue. Woke me right up.

Towards sunrise I dreamed about the ear vacuum. One of my commenter's likened it to a baby snot sucker. Thanks, Linda. I think a bulb syringe would work to get the water out of my ears and it would be a whole lot cheaper! But ........... the ear vacuum had a little motor in it. And we all know how Americans like their motorized doo-dads. Especially the male species.

It took me back in time to the 80's. I was working at the fabric store in Albany, Ga. Being the manager, one of my duties was to make sure that new products were properly promoted. A little battery operated sweater shaver came on the market. It was about the size of an electric razor and was supposed to safely shave the "pills" that form on your sweater after many wears and washings. We sold sweater combs for $1, but this had a little motor .........

We had an incentive program which gave the employee $.50 for every sweater shaver they sold. I had an "interesting" mix of employees. Some were timid, not outgoing at all, having no idea how to promote this gadget. I suggested that we all wear sweaters during this promotion. Sweaters that had experienced a good life, so that you could demonstrate the product. One employee, in particular, always had trouble following suggestions. She showed up with a sweater that was beyond any hope and ready for the rag bag.

I could not believe she wore it to work. In retrospect, I don't know why I had trouble believing it, since I had had to counsel her many times on basic hygiene. She drove a panel van with no air conditioning ..... in south Georgia, people. She would arrive with a sweat rag draped round her neck, mopping her face as she walked in. Oh, and she did not bathe regularly. Nor did she use an anti-perspirant. I know all this because I had to tell her that her odor was offensive to her fellow workers and customers. She was baffled, because she didn't smell anything out of the ordinary. Causing me to ask all these questions. I stopped short of asking about the grooming of underarms, but I would be willing to bet that she could have demonstrated a razor.

Upon arrival in the raggedy sweater I had to tell her to remove it, that I was afraid the sweater shaver would eat the whole thing up. The rest of us were selling those little suckers like crazy. She wanted in on the action and spied a lady in a sweater that had seen better days. The lady was looking at the clearance fabric and did not appear to be someone who would splurge on the $4.99 "luxury" item.

My smelly saleswoman was not to be deterred, though. After tailing the lady throughout the store she accosted her at the checkout counter and demonstrated the gadget on the lady's sweater. The store was not packed, but pretty busy. To my absolute horror I looked over just in time to see her running the shaver over the lady's sweater, with not just a little bit of pressure ......... on the woman's breast.

No, she did not make a sale and I think we lost a customer forever. In my dream, it was this woman selling the ear vacuum on TV. I no longer want one.