Viet thought, what a lucky coincidence and opened the door. The man let himself and his equipment in. When he realized what Viet was wearing, his eyes nervously darted around the apartment. Viet said, “No, no, this is my wife’s,” and wrapped the robe around a notch tighter.

“I just came out here from Wyoming. People are a lot more easy going out here I guess.” The man had a slight twang to his voice. He wore an ironed white shirt and even ironed his jeans. A crease ran the length of his long legs. He had cowboy boots on underneath. His tall lankiness looked out of place in their box of an apartment. He said, “Point me to the room sir.”

Viet took him to the living room. He was going to return to the tub when the man insisted that Viet observe the cleaning. Viet felt silly sitting on the couch in a thin woman’s robe, watching a stranger clean his living room, but he believed it was well worth it. A professional carpet cleaning with shampoo usually cost at least thirty dollars.

The young man unpacked shiny heavy looking metal parts from a large cardboard box. “My name’s Troy,” he said. He was assembling the vacuum and fitting a hose into the canister. “Bear with me, almost got her going for you here.” His tongue poked out from the side of his mouth as he concentrated on putting the machine together. “The other guys do this in a couple of minutes. I’m pretty new at this. I’m used to live things bucking at me, ya know? I used to ride in the circuit back home.” Troy said he was a cowboy from a ranching family that had hit hard times. He mumbled something about “globalization.”

Viet understood that cowboys were a dying breed and instantly felt a bond with the young man. He asked, “Can I offer you some green tea?”

Troy presented what he called a Kirby vacuum, and said it was the best in its class. He replaced the vacuum bag with a clear plastic chamber that allowed you to watch the dirt being sucked through. He also produced some white filters that you could pull from the chamber in order to look at the dirt up close.

“Why don’t you pull out your vacuum so we can compare,” said Troy. Viet pulled out his red Hoover upright from the hall closet. He ran it across the carpet in just one spot a couple of times as directed by Troy and then sat back down on the couch. Troy then went over the exact same spot with the shiny chrome and steel of the Kirby. Sure enough he was able to extract an entire pile of dirt and sand. Troy continued to change filter after soiled filter, cleaning 10 different spots on the carpet.

“This here motorized vacuum head cost $29 million dollars for NASA to develop. That’s why it’s so good. You’ve got all-American NASA engineering.” Viet nodded at the staggering statistics. Troy said, “How much do you think something like this costs?”