Sales Technique

”You can’t speak to me like that,” said the clearly upset spotty young man standing in my kitchen.

Technically, I hadn’t spoken to him at all but I can see how he might have been offended. The thing I hate most about losing my voice is that I feel rude. Even when it’s coming back, as it is today, I still try not to speak much because it will disappear again like Willo-the-wisp.  This leaves you with gestures and an odd croaked word, which when you are cross seem so much more rude and aggressive than I would have conveyed in a whole sentence.

With hindsight, I can see that our encounter was never going to go well. I should have known.  A few weeks ago I had a call from a very nice sounding young lady who said they were a local company repairing vacuum cleaners and would I like mine serviced. Normally, I would get grumpy and say, “How have you got my number? I’m with the telephone preference service, you know,” which would be met with a click and the dial tone but that day I listened. You see, I confess that I’ve had my hoover for 15 years and have never even changed the filter (not being quite sure where it was) and I thought the price sounded good so I booked the appointment.

I was surprised that he felt he needed to ask me questions before he did the work.
“Are you aware that we are a totally independent company?” he asked with his pen poised over the tick box on the serious amount of paperwork he had with him.  I should have just nodded but instead I croaked, “I’m not aware or unaware and I don’t see that it matters.”
“Can I just tick yes then?” he pleaded.

He asked me questions about hoovering that no human being should have to think about or divulge to a stranger.  I just nodded, shrugged or shook my head, as seemed appropriate.
He made me hoover his bit of carpet and told me that I could feel it had no suction. To be honest, it felt like it did when I hoovered after the work.

Then he took it apart and dramatically shook some dust around the garden. When it was in pieces he called me back to look at it and took a picture to ‘add to my file.’ He explained that it needed new filters and a new roll bar because the brushes were a bit worn.
“This is a real beast of a machine. Are you aware of the EU rules?”
I shook my head.
“You see this machine has a 1400 watt motor and you are only allowed 700 Watts now, so if I were you, I’d have all the work done all day long. And while we’re talking can I just show you this?”
He thrust an insurance type repair contract into my hand without waiting for a nod and gave me the hard sell on how I needed this, “at only £7 a month. I would go for it all day long,” he grinned.

I told him that I would think about it, which seemed to upset him. He kept talking for long enough for me to mentally run through my shopping list and the whole of the periodic table.
“So, you say that parts are free. How long do I have to keep this contract?”
He realised what  I was thinking.
“Oh no madam the machine has to be in full working order before you take out the contract. I suggest that you seriously talk to your husband about taking this out.”
I think I pulled a face. “Is there a husband? What I suggest you do is take out the contact but don’t replace the roller. Then after a month ring up and say, ‘My husband doesn’t normally do the hoovering but he did it yesterday and complained that he had to run over the dog three times before it got picked up.”” OK, so he didn’t say dog but I was too busy raising my eyebrows to listen properly.

I told him to just replace the filter and that I would think about everything else. He grumpily put the machine back together.

“Can I just show you something?” He said, taking a small handheld hoover out of a box, plugging it in and starting to hoover my stairs. I knew they looked a bit grubby but I wasn’t expecting this. After he had cleaned two steps he stopped to show me how much dirt he’d picked up.
“Well done. Would you like to do the rest?”
“I can do that if you want me to,” he said. I don’t think he got the joke. “What do you think of it?”
I told him that it was very good. I always find it wise to praise a man’s tools. Especially, as this chap seemed rather old fashioned in his thinking about who should use a vacuum.

He told me the price and asked me what I thought.  I shrugged. He gave me a lower price. I shrugged again and croaked something about not looking to buy a new hoover as I’ve just had mine serviced. He told me how I should really consider it, as I have obviously never been cleaning my stairs properly and then suddenly changed tack.
“Well how do you do clean your upholstery?”
I pointed at my leather sofa and mimed wiping them down.
"The dog bedding?" I referred him to the blankets and covers I had just taken out of the washing machine.
“What about your mattress.”
“Don’t!” I squeaked, “Life’s too short.”
Now, I realise that everyone reading this will be recoiling in horror at my sluttishness but I  don’t care. Life is too short for me to hoover my mattress regularly, although I have done it once or twice in a moment of madness.
“What,” He spluttered, “It’s basic cleanliness.” He then gave me a lecture on bed mites and what they live on.

After five minutes of this I'd had enough.  If I had a voice I might have said, “Please stop now. I don’t know why you think insulting me is going to make me buy stuff I don’t want from you.” However, I just held up my hand put my finger to my lips and said, “Shhh. Stop.”

You can see why he was so upset.  It must be a very effective sales technique and I’m only surprised I didn’t buy twelve hoovers I didn’t need.

A 3am Question

"Do you think you know yourself?" a pupil asked me.
You really do need a PhD in Philosophy to teach the flute.
I said that I thought I did, as far as anyone could know themselves but that most people will only see a little bit of you or more probably the bit they want to see; the bit that reflects themselves. It made me think. Most things make me think.  I'm like that baby owl in that picture book.

At work I had pointed out to a colleague, who had her name on the back of her tracksuit, how the EYFS children would read it. She laughed and said, "Why don't you work every day, I've missed you."
I wondered why and suggested that it was because I was the only person whose brain made odd connections.  She just laughed again.  That's the bit of me that she sees - the bit that makes her laugh - the bit that makes odd connections and grumbles about having to talk to people.  Another colleague at the photocopier snorted at my suggestion that my brain works differently.  She asked me if I've seen the Good Wife (I have. I've watched too much TV this year.) and she likened me to Elsbeth Tascioni.  This character is bonkers.  Properly bonkers. Sectionable but brilliant.  I started to worry because I'm not brilliant but fretted that she thought I could have genuine mental health issues. Alternatively, she could be bonkers and that’s just the bit of me that she identifies with.

Elsbeth Tascioni is a lawyer who appears completely disorganised but plucks brilliant thoughts out of nowhere. She gets absorbed by small details and then seems to go completely off topic to find the right answer. She can be talking about a complex case and start staring at the buttons on the person’s cardigan and say, “I like those buttons,” which gives her an idea to win the case. It’s almost like she’s seen the script. Maybe the tendency to be diverted is the small part I’m like.


I’m never more diverted than when I’m asleep and often wake up at 3am with a burning question.
This morning, my question was, “What colour is cancer?”  I had been asking people in my dream and whenever anyone told me what they thought I would argue with them.
“It’s got to be red. Red like blood,” said the dream Long Suffering Husband.
“I’ve always thought it would be white,” I replied.
“White? Are you mad woman?” This has to be my dream daughter. “How can something so awful be white? It’s got to be black.”
“It could be black,” conceded dLSH, “Like dying tissue.”
“I’ve always liked purple,” said my friend.
“I know but this isn’t a discussion about your favourite colour,” I reminded her
“It could be purple,” said another friend, “like a bruise.”
“No. I really think it’s white, like a tooth that’s growing in the wrong place.”
They pondered the suggestion, while bizarrely eating bananas. Dreams are weird.
“Green,” piped up my son of few words.
“Yes, I could go with green,” my daughter expanded for him, “like snot or infection a pussy oozing of stuff that shouldn’t be there.”
They all agreed that green would work as a colour.
“My snot is always yellow,” joined in my sister from nowhere. She was drinking a pint of beer.
They decided it could be yellow.
“But I’ve always thought it would be pearly white. You know, iridescent and shining, sitting where it shouldn’t.”
“Maybe it’s different colours depending on where it is,” said my mum, arranging her mints on the kitchen table by type, like a live version of Candy Crush.
Dreams are weird.
“Probably,” agreed my daughter, “That must be why the ribbons are different colours.”
We all said that we didn’t know they were different colours and she went on to explain all the colours she knew about until another friend appeared singing, “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.”
“That would mean breast cancer is pink. I don’t like that. Pink is one of my favourite colours,” said my imaginary friend. Not my imaginary friend, Baby Cumby because he hasn’t been around for years but my imagined friend. Actually, it’s a shame Baby Cumby wasn’t there. He was always very wise.
“That would be cool,” I said, “pink pearls.”
My dream companions were confused.
“I’m sure I read somewhere that oysters that have pearls actually have cancer and the pearl is a cancer deposit. Maybe we would make jewellery from all the cancers they cut out of people.”
I woke up as everyone was shouting, “Julia! That’s gross!”

I just hope I can forget the dream, so that if I’m asked if I have any questions today I don’t say, “Yes. What colour is cancer?”

In search of a Smile

“I know why women have facelifts,” I shouted at the Long Suffering Husband from the bathroom. The woman looking back at me while I cleaned my teeth was starting to look like a Bassett hound with less drool. My eye bags have reached my not very high cheekbones and my jowls are beginning to cover up my windplayer’s double chin.

“It’s just that you’ve stopped smiling,” he assured me.

I looked at the miserable Bassett hound and tried to make her smile but it felt all wrong.

“I used to be a smiley person,” I told my friend, explaining the problem later, “and now all I can think about is how someone searching for their lost smile would make a good children’s book.”

The LSH had a plan. He thought my smile might be in London. We queued for day seats to see Young Frankenstein, ate breakfast at the Ivy, walked to Kensington through St James’, Green and Hyde Parks, looked at beautiful things in the V&A, had a drink in a pub, and laughed our way through most of the musical. I thought I’d found my smile, particularly in the pub. For a non drinker, I find a proper pub surprisingly comforting. The bar always looks warm and welcoming, with the different coloured liquids reflected by a good bar mirror. It is also the perfect height for leaning, while listening to conversations. 

A brief return of the smile 

Young Frankenstein has a fantastic cast. It’s based on the Mel Brooks film and so it is impossible not to laugh. Lesley Joseph gives a masterclass in comic timing. Diane Pilkington, Patrick Clancy, Nic Greenshields and Hadley Fraser are amazing musical theatre stars with stunning voices. Summer Strallen stands out for her gymnastic ability, not only with her body but I have never heard yodelling quite that good. The LSH was shocked by how much she seemed to enjoy showing her pants, which 

reminded me of the frilly waterproof over-nappy knickers that my sister wore as a baby. Even the 

ensemble were stunning.

I should have found my smile but a couple of things were bothering me. I wasn’t quite sure what until the interval when the LSH said, “I’m not sure I like the way Mel Brooks thinks of women.”

Then in the second half the Monster drags Frankenstein’s girlfriend into a cave and rapes her with his extra large body part, which makes her sing about deep love and declare her undying love for him. It was both funny and disturbing, like the way we all laughed at Benny Hill before we knew any better. Why Elizabeth and the creature couldn’t have just fallen in love I can’t comprehend. 

When we got home there was a puddle of water on the floor. I apologised to the dog for being out so long but he looked at the puddle, growled, looked at the ceiling, growled a bit more and backed away. The ball thing on the heating tank had broken off and water was coming over the top of the tank and dripping through the floor. We have a gas contract so I rang them (after turning off the water and scooping out the extra water). An automated message said, “There are no operators available to take your call. This may be because our building has had to be evacuated or our systems are down.”

This seemed a bit overly dramatic and as I rushed around with buckets and towels I passed the mirror and noticed that if I had found my smile in London, I had definitely left it there. 

I need to go back again soon.

The most dangerous thing about teaching

When I was training to be a homoeopath (in another life) we were told, by a very glamorous grey haired woman that, “Whenever you are travelling with elderly relatives you should have the remedy Causticum in the car.” It was advice that I ignored at the time because I was young and couldn’t ever imagine having elderly relatives. Causticum treats acute paralysis of the bladder, or “motorway bladder,” as she called it. It’s not a serious condition but just happens if people with older, slacker muscles have to hold their wee for a long period of time. When they get out of the car, despite needing to go they can’t.

Going back to school after a holiday I always struggle with not being able to go for a wee whenever I like. I drink a lot of water and it always takes my bladder time to readjust to break times only. In lessons after the holidays, you explain what you want the children to do, ask if there are any questions and half a dozen hands go up to say, "Can I go for the toilet?" This always happens but there are more after a holiday and not just the kids who are hoping to get out of the lesson.  After holidays I only want to say to them, "Only if I can go to the wee."

Also, when you are a teacher you can't always guarantee getting to the toilet in break time.  At the beginning of break there are a couple of kids who wait at the end of the lesson to show you a song they've made up, another who has learnt a piece on their recorder that they just have to show you, one who wants to know when choir starts and before you know it the bell has rung and you've missed your chance.

I was alive in the Seventies and remember them as the whole of my brutal childhood, with terrible wallpaper, long hot summers and water rationing, games that included clackers and horse of the year show on spacehoppers. That must make me old and now I am the elderly relative that my homeopathic tutor warned us about.  Motorway bladder is a thing for teachers who were alive in the Seventies.

Clackers - the Seventies were brutal

By the end of the day I was standing in the corridor with my class, waiting for them to go back to their own classroom, doing the wee dance.  A colleague came out and noticed.
"Just go now, I'll wait with the class," she said.
I ran. Past parents waiting to pick up their darlings. Past the office.  Into the bathroom and sat. Nothing happened.  I tried whistling. Whistling usually works. Still nothing.  I went back to my class. Solved a Rubik's cube and sent them home.
Later, in the staffroom, my colleague said, "Did you make it?"
I explained that I had a case of motorway bladder.
"What! You still haven't been?"
I had to confess that I hadn't.
My other colleague said, "I've got to go. Come with me and you can listen to me.  That will make you go." 
I must point out that our toilets have two cubicles in them.
Although it's nice to have friends who are willing to let you listen to them pee to help you out I thought that might be a bit over friendly. 
"I saw a programme once where that happened to someone and they just blew up like a balloon and when they got to hospital they stuck a straw thing in them and it just spurted out everywhere.  I could do that for you," suggested the friend from the corridor.
"I'll hold your hand," said the other.

Luckily, no straw was required. 

How did I get to this age and not know that?

Yesterday, I spent the day listening to nurses make small talk with their patients. A lot of conversation were about how fat everyone had got over Christmas.  This, I could relate to.  However, things were said that made me wonder how the nurse I was listening to had managed to get to 50 without knowing those things.  For example, she should have known that saying, "Where would you like your little prick?" was going to make everyone laugh, even if she was holding a syringe.

It always surprises me how unaware of the natural world people can be.  How can people live for half a century and not know that acorns grow on oak trees, blackberries; ready from the end of August  are wonderful free food, and that red sky at night means it's going to be nice weather the next day?
"You know, it's funny, my dad always used to say 'Red sky at night shepherd's delight. Red sky in the morning shepherd's warning,' and when I was walking from the car park I noticed the sky was really red and now the weather's awful," the nurse said, "so maybe it's true."

Today, I was back at work and I learnt something new.  I am quite old and I was surprised that I didn't know this thing. Today the children asked me how old I was and, as usual, I told them to guess.  There were guesses in the 90's, 70's and they finally plumped for two years older than my real age.  They even insisted that I was older than the most senior teacher in the school.

What was it I learnt? It was about friendship.  Siting in the morning assembly, the only other adult in there apart from the headteacher, noticing how tired all the children were I marveled at how you could give the head a telephone directory and he could find a moral in it. He played Elbow's Golden Slumbers and asked the children where they'd heard it before. None said the Beatles' Abbey Road album. Some did mention the Sing movie but most knew it was in the John Lewis advert. They're good listeners.

Then he played the advert. He told the children that the advert was about friendship.  He paused it at different places.  We watched the boy being scared of the monster under the bed.  Then the children laughed, the bed rattled, he pressed pause and said, "Then something happens and they become friends."

How did I not know that?  If you want to make friends, you just need to fart.  Maybe that's why so many people like my dog.