News from the Mountain

By CAROL GUNTER

Monday morning up here on the mountain and hoping I’ll get the last of my mowing done today as the rain stopped me Saturday evening behind Aubrey’s shop. The weather guys and gals keep saying we need the rain, so I guess we do, but let me get my mowing done first then it can pour.

I’ve had my cups of coffee with the hazelnut creamer this morning and hope you have had your coffee to get you motivated also. Could be a really good day since I’ve not seen any of the little green guys, and invisible cow or any pesky armadillo to bug me, but I’m always on my guard as any element of surprise could be fatal for me, not them. Have plenty of work to do outside and enjoy the day the Lord has put at my feet - never to take it for granted and plan to make the best of it.

Please keep some people in prayer: Denise Stanton, Carlon and Mai Nell Melton, and Donna Lawson.

Maybe one or two of you can relate to back in the seventies as I certainly do to those salespeople who came by selling vacuum cleaners, cookware, and etc. One one occasion, Aubrey had eaten supper and was in his recliner with it in park as he would tell me, when a salesman came to the door. He was selling vacuum cleaners. Take this in mind, Aubrey had put in a hard day’s work and all he wanted to do was rest. He told the guy we had a vacuum cleaner and we really didn’t need another one.

This should have been sufficient enough for the guy to take the box of Tide or some kind of cleaning product he had put down on our coffee table and thank Aubrey and leave, you would think. No, this was not the case, as he started then talking about their vacuum cleaner and how far superior it was to any on the market you could buy. Of course, Aubrey being the kind of man he was, let the guy keep talking as he wanted to demonstrate how good his vacuum cleaner was.

Well, this proved to be quite interesting, but before the demonstration got started, Aubrey made the statement if he was going to buy a vacuum cleaner, he would pay cash for it as he didn’t like monthly payments. I do not know how much the price on the vacuum cleaner was, but I heard the guy say that he could lower it some he was sure, but he would have to call his boss that was somewhere in the area close by to verify this. Sensing a sale of a vacuum cleaner to us was pretty imminent, the guy’s boss showed up at the house in just a few minutes. Imagine that - pretty convenient I was thinking.

I was washing dishes, when the demonstration began with Aubrey and the two guys being in the living room. I saw a lot of dust a flying (it was like one of those dust bowls you see on TV) and afterwards, when the air finally cleared, the guy showing Aubrey all of that dirt his vacuum cleaner had sucked up and what did Aubrey have to say about it? His response was, well, I hadn't said anything about the “Hoover” not working so I guess she’s just not been working it!

Silence - then the laughter erupted from all of them about, I’m sure, my house cleaning habits. If you remember (in my defense), I have already told you this girl is an outside person, not an inside person. The conversation the guys were having about the vacuum cleaner was finally, I knew, going to come to an end as Aubrey had been leading them on now for about two hours at least. These guys I guess had never been around a guy like Aubrey before, but the sort of asked for the run-around they got from him.

He was having so much fun with them. The one that was the boss said, Mr. Gunter, You're not going to buy a vacuum cleaner from us are you? To that statement, Aubrey said, no, I’m not. With that, they were leaving as I came into the living room. I asked what happened to the free cleaning product? Aubrey, grinning, said the buy being outdone just picked it up , looked at him, said thank you and went out the door.

Only Aubrey could have pulled this caper off as he saw the opportunity to have some fun with them. The first guy should have just taken Aubrey at his word that we didn’t need a vacuum cleaner!

If you have any news for the column, just give me a call at 615-563-4429. Have a great day!

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
And blessed be HIS glorious name forever.
Psalm 72:18,19