I'd been sick for days and at the urging of my boss, I went to one of those walk-in clinics. Ok, "urging" is quite right, more like "you look awful, go to that doc-in-the-box place down the street. NOW." A few tests later, I was diagnosed with strep throat and my boss sent me home while my coworkers began sterilizing my desk. If you've never experienced the joys of strep, it's nearly impossible to swallow and all you want to do is sleep.

After picking up my prescription from the drugstore and my youngest from daycare, I headed home to be miserable in the comfort of my little bed. I was almost asleep when the doorbell rang. I knew 5 year old Tyler would get there first and I'd have to get up anyway so I dragged my carcass to the door. A way too perky young woman stood there with a bottle of household cleaner in hand. "Hi I'm So and So with Whatzit Marketing and we'd like you to try this new product." Ok, fine - as a freelance writer I'm used to getting samples of things to review. Once a company shelled out big bucks to overnight a box of their new cereal to me. I took the bottle, turned around to set it on the counter and was almost knocked over by Ms. Perky and another woman, who were hauling in a vacuum cleaner. Other Woman left and Perky started in with her demonstration of the wonders of a FurrBee vacuum cleaner.

"Um Perky," I said, trying to be nice. "I was just diagnosed with strep…"

"That's ok hon, I got a flu shot!" She breezed past me and nearly killed herself tripping over various toys in the living room. (Mamas reading this will understand why the house was a pit - if Mom's sick, nothing gets done) Tyler wandered off to play and I figured "what the heck, at least the house will get cleaned up a bit." Perky got to work, which was interesting because there is no carpet in my house. She merrily shoved the hose along the floor and at one point made it her mission to get all the pet hair off one of the chairs, which was a losing battle due to the four dogs and two cats that call La Casa de Wren home.

Things started getting weird after that. Perky insisted on changing the filter (the size of a coffee filter) every couple of minutes to show me the filth that the FurrBee was sucking out of my home. I knew the place needed work, I didn't need physical evidence! She plopped the filters on the floor and it didn't take long for my living room to look like a strange mine field. Right about then, my stomach decided it didn't like what I'd eaten for breakfast. I couldn't get from the living room to the bathroom because the path was blocked by Perky, the FurrBee and a couple dozen dusty land mines. I tried an end run through the kitchen and made it as far as the trash can before…well, I'll spare you the details but your thinking is correct.

Did Perky start packing up while I was tossing my cookies? Nope, she whipped out another attachment and started vacuuming my ceiling! "Now this attachment will get all the dust from your walls and ceiling, isn't that great, Hon?" She didn't mean the occasional cobweb in a corner; she was cleaning the ceiling as if it was a carpet! Now, I'm a big Martha Stewart junkie and I've NEVER seen the diva of domesticity get out the hose and make tracks on the ceiling. At that point, I half expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a door and announced that I was being Punk'd.

When Perky put down the hose, I thought the whole nightmare was almost over. Nope.

"Do you know what the dirtiest room in your house is?" Perky asked.

At that point, any room could have won but I said the bathroom, which by her reaction almost blew her mind.

"Why?"

"Lady, there are 3 guys who live in this house and not one of them can aim!" Some days I threaten to turn an entire wall into a giant urinal.

"No actually it's the bedroom!" With that, Perky grabbed a smaller unit and trotted down the hall to my bedroom. What nerve! I would have thrown her out but being sick had really done a number on my ability to throw out salespeople with cojones the size of Alaska. Being sick had also taken its toll on my bedroom - the table was covered with used tissues, assorted cold medicine, half empty water bottles and magazines. Perky shoved the comforter aside and started vacuuming the sheets while telling me more than I ever wanted to know about dust mites. I'll spare you the gory details, but it wasn't helping my tummy.

Perky wrapped up her presentation, Other Woman showed up again and I thought the whole mess was nearly over. Wrong again! It was time for the hard sell.

"Did you get to try the FurrBee for yourself, to see how easy it is to use?" said O.W.

"No, that's ok, I trust you…"

"No no, you HAVE to see how easy it is to use this unit or I won't give Perky credit for this demonstration!"

I coughed into my hand, wrapped it around the handle, shoved it a couple times and in my best sarcastic voice said "Ooh, swell."

O.W. didn't even blink. "Ok well you can have the magic of FurrBee in your own home for only $1600 dollars! Isn't that an awesome deal??"

For that kind of money, I want something that will do the cleaning for me, not something I have to actually touch! That, and my husband would have a conniption, to put it mildly.

"I'm sorry, I can't make a decision for that much money without speaking to my husband first." I know that sounds totally Leave It To Beaver-ish but I was getting desperate to get them out of my house.

"All righty, we can come back, when does he get home from work?"

"He'll be here at 3:30."

O.W. and Perky left the FurrBee so Bud could see the "wonders" of the device. They didn't even pick up the coffee filter landmines! I called him at work and told him that he could run off a couple of salespeople when he got home. He was having a bad day and was thrilled at the opportunity to vent. I went back to bed.

A couple hours later, he came in and told me the rest of the story. O.W. and Perky were waiting in the driveway when he got home. O.W. quickly filled him in on the "wonders" of the FurrBee and told him that I was so excited about getting one that my eyes lit up at the sight of it.

"Are you going to let her have one?" O.W. asked. (Luckily she was gone by the time I heard this, or I would have coughed all over her for making such a sexist remark in the 21st century.)

Now, there are many advantages of being with the same guy for over 12 years. One is that he knew that my eyes would never light up over the sight of a vacuum cleaner unless it was being pushed by George Clooney. It's well known that I'd rather make Thanksgiving dinner from scratch than clean. He not so politely told them where to go and helped pack up the FurrBee.

This bizarre story does have a happy ending. By the end of the month, I was completely over strep and the house was back to its normal, disheveled state. Bud realized that I needed a bit of help around the house so we pre-spent some of our tax return on a Scooba, the robot thingie that sweeps, mops and dries floors all by itself. O.W. and Perky never darkened our doorstep again, but it's hard to tell for sure since nobody is home during the day anymore. And I got my revenge on a company that doesn't understand the meaning of "no" with this little column.

The moral of our story? Don't mess with a humor columnist!