It is so easy to write a blog post when you are traveling. All you have to do is show where you have been, and throw in a few photos. But we weren’t traveling yesterday, and I didn’t take any photos. I did leave the house, but it wasn’t very interesting. I went to Breads Unlimited in the morning and bought a challah – that’s a Friday morning routine most weeks. Then later in the afternoon, we went to Mom’s Organic Market just to buy a few things to carry us over the weekend, and we wound up spending $146.34. We dropped by Hannah’s house and saw Joan and Izzy for a little while, and stopped at the Fishery and got some bronzino fillets.

We came home, had a very nice dinner, watched the Nationals beat the Marlins 9-2, and that’s about it. Reporting on that does not make for very interesting reading. But……something worth writing about must have occurred, no?

Well, there was the guy, who maybe was named “Will”. (I am very poor at hearing the end of sentences that go “Hi, I am _____”.) He was a very charming young man, probably about 6 feet tall, blue eyes, dark hair. He was charming, and he knew it. He told me that he just graduated from BCC High School (Bethesda-Chevy Chase) and that he was about to start college at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County). He stopped me as I was coming into the house to tell me that he also had a group of folks who washed windows, and he asked if we wanted our windows washed.

Well, I have learned my lesson long ago about people who knock on your doors, so I said that I didn’t think so. He then said: “Can I tell you how we do them?” “Sure”, I mistakenly responded, and he told me about taking off the screens, using various pressure mechanism, cleaning the frames as well as the glass, doing inside as well as outside if we wanted, being able to reach up to 50′ outside, using purified water that left no streaks. Everything that you would expect a charming young man to say.

He then asked me if he could give me an estimate. Again, mistakenly, I said “Sure”, and he asked if we wanted an estimate for outside only, or for inside and outside. I told him outside only, and he said “OK, but added that they have to go inside to loosen the screens. He walked around the house and said that his normal price would be $370, but since he was doing so many houses in our neighborhoods (including, he said, “Sonia, next door, at 9:30 a.m.”), he would do our windows for $270.

I told him “no thanks, and he looked hurt, as only a charming young man can, and asked if the problem was the price. He told me that they were filled up for 9:30 in our neighborhood, but had one slot left at 12:30. Just like Donald Trump (I can’t leave him out of my posts, can I?) looking for 11,799 votes in Georgia, Will had just one more slot left at 12:30 and it was so important for him to fill it, that he gave me one last chance: “Okay”, he said, “here is the Hail, Mary. Because we need to fill that one slot, I will give it to you for $220.”

To his enormous shock and surprise, I told him “no, thanks”. But, I said to myself, “well, he is a young kid trying to make some money for school (although he looked like he could have been a billionaire’s son), so I am not just going to leave him without something, so I said “Well, give me your card, and maybe later”.

A card? What made me think that this young entrepreneur would have a card? He had no cards – the deal should be made right now. But he said he had a website. “Oh, I said, okay. What is your website?”

Of course, I felt like the decrepit old man being taunted by a young grifter who was sure he would win this conversation, and he said (not surprisingly), I can text it to you. “No”, I said, “that won’t work. Just tell me what it is.” My phone number was the last thing that I wanted him to have. He told me it was fluxhomesolutions.com.

It turns out there is a website and the company does exist. The website is pretty flashy and it would take you all day to read everything on it. It says the company is locally owned, and it says that they get 5 stars on Google. Well, I couldn’t find the Google rating, but I did find the Yelp rating and it gives them 3 stars, saying that some customers were satisfied, while others felt they did not do a good job or a complete job, or did not show up at all.

Well, it is now 10 a.m., and looking out the window, I certainly don’t see them at Sonia’s house. Of course, they might just be coming 35 minutes late. We will see. I will let you know.

At any rate, that was my Friday excitement.

One more thing. While I was writing this post, I got a text on my phone. No, not from Will or Flux. The text is “Hi, Lily here. We are working nearby and offering complementary quotes for tree trimming this week and next. Want one?”

Will. Lill. Do you see a pattern here?

But, wait! Maybe tree trimming is just what we need.

The view of our front yard crepe myrtles (crepes myrtle?)  is being blocked by that tree on the left, which is growing every year. Maybe I should ask Lill to trim it. But that would also make our windows more visible. “Will, where are you?”