We had a major appliance store come out to the house yesterday to clean our dryer vent. I don’t want to say the company’s name so I will mix up the letters to throw people off track. Only tremendously good word jumblers will be able to crack this code.

So three guys from Arses (pretty fitting) show up - 2 guys to do the cleaning and 1 guy to upsell me into other services. The upseller tells me how filthy our air conditioning vents are and that we should consider cleaning it. Well clean it or shrink my family down and move into an exhaust pipe of a semi-truck from the 60s. Either one is preferable than continuing to breathe the air that’s moving about my house. I’m aware that vents do need to be cleaned so I take him up on his offer of a free estimate.

After he takes a quick detour back to his van to put on a Hazmat suit, we walk around the house counting the number of vents. I tell him there’s only one vent in the baby’s room. The look on his face when I mentioned the baby’s room was genuine horror. It was pretty amazing. He then says with continued fear, “You have a baby here?” I tell him we do prefer to live with our baby.

He ignores me and goes into scare tactic mode. He pulls out pamphlets (the standard “So You’ve Decided to Kill Your Baby” series) to show me all of the horrible things my baby is inhaling on a moment to moment basis. I tell him he doesn’t need to do this as I’m clearly on board. We’re getting an estimate for Pete’s sake! He continues with the pamphlets as if I said nothing. He tells me that I need to clean the vents because a “child doesn’t have an immune system until he’s like 8 years old.” Now I’m not a doctor and I got terrible grades in my one year of Pre-Med but I’m pretty sure that’s not correct.

While he shows me more pictures of the pollen and debris that my daughter is sucking into her lungs by the spoonful, I realize there’s no stopping this guy so I get out my putty knife and try to get the bigger pieces of mold off my daughter’s crib. I can’t see them but I know he does and I’m not going to let this guy think I don’t care.

After I get the estimate and the list of other things I need to do if I want my daughter to function in life, he goes into a long explanation of why I should use Arses over the local guys. I tell him I would use Arses. He continues on with reasons to Arses. It’s clear to me that the dust and dirt floating through my house like an asteroid field have lodged in his ears taking his hearing.

When he leaves, I sign the bill and then I sign him a thank you. I only hope that Arses will allow someone to bravely come back out to do the vents before it’s too late for my daughter. I have to go. It’s getting hard to see the computer screen.

For the record, I do care about my daughter but it’s hard to provide a safe environment in this middle-class suburban home. We do our best.