The Joys of Carpet Cleaning

So I am much closer to listing my Birmingham home than I was, say a week ago. According to Kirby, the painter ran out of paint, so they are a bit behind, but the house should be ready to go this week. And by the way, the home needs a good spit-shine, the water leak (news to me) repaired and the carpets cleaned.

In the South, "carpet cleaning" is synonymous with a company that tends to charge too much for someone who is probably on probation and embittered by life. I really don't need employees from these companies knowing how to gain access to my vacant home and have them help themselves to the copper. Or worse, have them move in, throw a wild party or open a meth lab when I am not looking. And because things like this happen--more often than one can imagine--I wasn't too keen on having them responsible for my carpets. Feeling a bit lost on this issue, I asked Kirby for a name of a reliable carpet cleaner and he gave me Marvin. Kirby swears he is the best carpet cleaner I will ever meet.

When I called Marvin, my call went straight to voicemail, where a male voice with a very incomprehensible drawl said something along the lines of: "Hello, this is Marvin, please leave a message." When I mentioned this to Kirby, he replied, "Yea, he is pretty country." Kirby's idea of "country" is my idea of "Southern." But regardless, I left a message.

It turns out Marvin didn't bother to answer, because he never answers if he doesn't recognize the phone number. Nor does he listen to the message left by anyone who calls and leaves a message from a number he doesn't recognize. Kirby told me this also when I called him several hours later to tell him that Marvin the Wonderful hadn't gotten back to me. Personally, that's an interesting way to do business. It doesn't work in the Big City, but perhaps it is a thing in Alabama.

Anyway, Marvin eventually did call me back (after Kirby jostled him). Marvin would love to clean my carpets! Now, again this is probably a Big City thing, but when one is hired to do a job, it is perfectly respectable to stop selling one's services. But not Marvin. As soon as I said "you are hired" Marvin broke into a sales pitch.

You see, Marvin only uses artisan spring water, that is carried by three year old yaks who are yolked with wood from old forests. The water is collected from the mountains of Tibet. Once the water is brought to a small monastery at the base of mountain, the monks then bless the water and distill only the purest of water droplets before having it sent by albatross to Birmingham Alabama for Marvin to use in his carpet cleaning machine.

Marvin then continued to tell me how he personally hand scrubs every fiber in the carpet, when he had to take a quick non-sequitur. He said--and I am not making this up--"I hope you can understand me. My teeth fell out of my mouth and I might sound funny." Personally, I just thought he sounded Southern and I would have preferred to think so for the rest of my life.

It is fair to say everything Marvin said about his carpet cleaning techniques (which went on for a bit longer) from that point forward I didn't hear. I was busy with a visual I just didn't need. My ears did perk up when he finally got around to talking about price. Frankly, he is the least expensive carpet cleaner I have ever met. I am just hoping I understood him correctly.