Wednesday, August 22, 2007

A Rug Doctor a day keeps the funk away

Our Rug Doctor rental center used to be back in Layaway. When Layaway closed, it naturally came up to the Service Desk. Cue the fun. It's not like, you know, we don't already have a ton of stuff to do already.

Renting a Rug Doctor out takes more than a few seconds, because you have to fill out paperwork, wait for people to fish out two forms of ID, then go unlock the Rug Doctor, fill out the mileage and serial numbers, get signatures and then ring them out.

When you've got a line of people about to go ballistic because you can't return their crap fast enough, the last thing you want to see is someone lingering around the Rug Doctor rack.

Then there's the questions. We rent them. We don't sell them. Nor do I know or care if you can put dishwashing detergent in the Rug Doctor (for the record, you shouldn't). Regular or Wide Track? Whatever's going to get you done faster.

That one with the sign that says OUT OF ORDER, yeah, it really is broke and we can't rent it to you, even if it is the last one we have. Honest to Cthulu, it's broke. Seriously, it won't work. Not even a little bit. Even if your in-laws are coming and your carpet smells like smoke.

But my all-time favorite question was from a truly clueless man who wanted to know if he could clean his couches with a Rug Doctor. NOT THE ATTACHMENT. The regular Rug Doctor.

HIM: "Can you clean couches with these?" points at Rug Doctor display
ME: "No sir. Water comes out. It's pretty much meant for carpet floors only. There's an upholstery attachment, but they are all rented right now."
HIM: "What if I put my cushions on the floor and ran the machine over them?"
ME: "Are your cushions stuffed with foam or something?"
HIM: "Yeah"
ME: "Then that would get all wet. So would the couch if you tried to clean it."
HIM: "The cushions are kinda flat and hard. Would that help?
ME: "No."
HIM: "Huh. But the couch is really stinky. The people that we got it from smoke a lot."
ME: "Uh, you might try some Febreeze, or carpet cleaner and a good vacuum."
HIM: "Will that work? It stinks like dog crap."
ME: "Uh. I dunno. But Febreeze has all those commercials. You could just get a new couch if it smells that bad."
HIM: "No way. That costs money. What aisle is Febreeze on?"

Points him to Aisle 13. Leaves to go ponder the all the ways in which the preceding few moments were just wrong.

11 comments:

Rio said...

I sometimes wonder if these people do this kind of crap for their own warped sense of humor.

Evil HR Lady said...

My sister knew a woman who took her couch (upholstery) out to the front lawn and sprayed it with the hose to clean it.

Don't worry--she didn't do that with the cushions. Those she washed in the bathtub.

Overall, I think the carpet cleaner would have been a better idea.

Anonymous said...

If you buy used furniture you should wrap it in plastic with moth balls or something for a few weeks to get rid of anything which might be living in there.

http://z.about.com/d/hotels/1/0/c/x/1/ch3_bed_bug_bites.jpg

Missy said...

Honest to Cthulhu- that is some serious honesty.

Beadknitter said...

Look at it this way...if there weren't stupid people in the world, who would us smart people talk about for a laugh?

Larry Kollar said...

The couch, according to the guy, "stinks like dog crap," and yet he wants to use it? It must be seriously comfortable, or he's desperate for a couch.

Anonymous said...

I guess when most of your budget is allocated to weed, you have to make compromises.

We once got a decent hide a bed couch off craigslist that smelled like smoke, so we Febreezed the hell out of it and left it on the back patio for a few weeks till the smell was gone (didn't have to worry about rain here in the desert).

Audrey said...

This guy must have really needed a couch to use a dog crap wreaking one!

Anonymous said...

Several years ago we got a hand-me-down couch that reeked of cat urine. Silly us, we just got rid of it. It was ugly anyway.

Sitting on the floor is a preferable alternative to sitting on a big pile of stink.

DS said...

Couches are probably the only things that I insist on buying new. Because if other people are like me, they do engage in naughty behavior -- or just sit nekkid -- on their couches... And no amount of Febreeze can undo that.

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