Knock! Knock!
Knock! Knock!
Brad ignored the sound. He wasn’t in the mood for company. His girlfriend was out of town with her friends for the weekend and vowed to enjoy the weekend in some quiet solitude with a book that was long overdue to be read. He missed the days he could polish over dozens of books in a week. Now he was lucky to get one read in a month. An overactive life is a death sentence to a book lover. Katy loved an overactive lifestyle. Brad loved Katy, even enough to sacrifice his previous life-long love affair with his books.
Knock! Knock!
Brad grimaced, he suspected that the person at the door knew someone was home, somehow. Perhaps he left the garage open, although he didn’t think so.
Knock! Knock!
Brad sighed in a defeated silence, set his book down and opened the door.
“Good day kind sir. Let me introduce myself, my name is Charlie Batcher. I am here today to show you the suckmaster 3000! I will swear on my life, that after seeing it you will never need another vaccuum cleaner again!”
“Sorry, I am not…”
“...interested. Forgive me for saying so, sir. But that is what they all say at first. If you will give me just five minutes of your time…”
“Again, NOT interested. We have a dyson and it works perfectly fine. have a nice day!” Brad slowly started to close the door. Charlie Batcher though strategically placed the Suckmaster 3000 in the way.
“If I may, sir. Just looking over your shoulder, either you haven’t vacuumed for a while, or that crappy Dyson really isn’t cutting it. At the very least, give me five minutes and I can have this room looking like you just installed new carpet. The love of your life will be thrilled, I assure you.”
Brad looked back at the floor. It did seem to to be showing a bit of crumbs and grime. Amazing what you don’t notice when you are not looking for it. Still, he was more that a bit annoy, he started pushing the Suckmaster 3000 away from the jamb with his foot. “Really, I’ll vacuum it up later. Have a nice…”
“But sir, I bet when you spill, let say some wine, like you must have over there, you would normally have to dig out your carpet cleaner. The Suckmaster 3000 is not only a vacuum, but has a patent-pending technology to clean wet stains without getting the carpet wet, adding to the live of your carpet.”
Brad turned to look, and near the corner of the sofa, there was a considerably large, wine stain on the carpet. How did he miss that? “And you can get this all clean in five minutes?” Brad asked.
“I guarantee it! If not, I will give you the Suckmaster 3000 for free.”
“Come on in.”
“Thank you sir,” Charlie Batcher said with a smile and a bow of the head, “your home will never regret it.”
Four-and-a-half minutes later...
Charlie Batcher watched his the gremlin vacuuming the room with the Suckmaster 3000, while Charlie himself polished his fangs and purused the book the owner of the house was reading.
“The Portable Voltaire, how utterly dull. I am pretty sure this guy is not going to be missed. Are you almost done Abercrombie? It has almost been five minutes.” Charlie asked.
“Do I get more stamps if I finish on time?” the gremlin asked as a response.
“Of course.”
“The old ones? None of those Forever ones. Those are garbage!”
“You get the old ones no matter what, you just get more if you get done on time, we did make a promise.”
“No, you made a promise , boss.” Abercrombie, the gremlin, sped up over the last part of the blood stain, then turned off the Suckmaster 3000.
“Too bad, five minutes and 4 seconds. Close, Aber…”
The gremlin pouted.
“I am just kidding. Close enough! Nice touch by the way adding that wine stain on the floor. We need to remember that for the future tough customers.” Charlie tossed an antique book of stamps to the gremlin. Abercrombie devoured them them quickly. “We will need to leave the Suckmaster 3000 though. So make sure you take their Dyson before we go. Oh, and also, make sure you loosen a screw to the Suckmaster so the misses calls on the warranty in oh, three months or so.”
“Sure thing boss!”
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This story was a response to Chuck Wendig's weekly writing prompt. Prompt for this one can be found at: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2016/06/10/flash-fiction-challenge-knock-knock-whos-there/