“The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.”

Here on Ho Hum Drive, we find ourselves dealing, quite often, with the disasters joys of owning a home that's 107ish years old. One of these nightmares joys is our windows, which are original to the home. We've been debating the proper way to replace these windows, as our energy bills are roughly the cost of buying a new car. (I'm kidding...barely). So anyhow, with me working now and with this company in Lincoln (I won't say their name, let's just say it rhymes with Zebraska Zome Zimprovement Zenter) having a "buy one, get one" sale, it seems like maybe our window nightmares might alas being turning into window dreams. cue dramatic love song

We've been waiting for two weeks for a charlatan salesman from this particular business to come on out and give us an estimate. Last night at 6:00 p.m. he got here to royally screw talk to us. These windows he described to us seemed like something out of an energy efficiency dream. Gas and foam insulation and metal that doesn't conduct heat or cold. Phooey we were excited. I mean seriously excited, we were thoroughly on board. This guy seemed like he knew what he was doing, and he seemed to understand our situation. We're living in a 107 year old home that's worth around $80,000. Good return on our investment was high on our list of priorities.

So this gentlemen wraps up his schpiel (after being here for 3 hours!) and gives us the total. With the BOGO rate, the total prices was over $19.000. I'll wait while you recover from a) having a heart attack or b) giving birth to a large bovine creature like I did.

...

Y'all better? For those of you who are still recovering and don't want to try to do the math after having a cow, that makes the real total over $38,000.00....for windows....in a house that's barely worth twice that...

Go ahead, it's time to chuckle. That's what I did. My husband, the smartest man I know, was a touch sucked into Mr Salesman's Schpiel and actually thought for about 15 minutes that that seemed reasonable. Once Mr Salesman left our house and I had stopped laughing, I reiterated about 763 times that there was no way on God's Green Earth I would *ever* spend 38,000 on windows...Especially not for this house.

I don't know what went through Mr Salesman's itty bitty little brain, but I can only conclude he walked into our modest home (I mean really modest, take a look around...it's cozy, but we're clearly not rolling in dough) and decided he could try to take us for nearly $40,000. I was more than a little amused and more than a lot irritated. When this thief gentlemen came by today to pick up his catalog, after Michael had informed him we would not in fact be giving him our business, I was rude to someone for the first time in a very long time. Mr Salesman had offered to give Michael a quote on some "lesser" windows. The quote on those lesser windows? $13,000. I did not let this man into my home a second time and I actually shut the door on him. By the way, yes apparently this business sells cheaper windows. I'm sure it's probably standard salesmanship to try to talk a customer into the cadillac of all windows (and yes, these were *really danged nice* windows) but in this case, it would have been more effective to read the environment, read the customers, and talk to them about what they can afford. I'm extremely annoyed to have wasted my time with this jackass and frankly I intend to write a scathing, but polite, letter to his company...as soon as I can stop referring to him as "jackass".

So there ya have it. Ho Hum Drive will not be getting new windows from the Zebraska Zome Zimprovement Zenter. In fact, we've decided to buy them one at a time and put them in ourselves. Take that, jackass.

“There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an window salesman?”
--Woody Allen (Yes I changed that up a bit)