My carpet was dirty, so I decided to clean it before the New Year. In Detroit Yellow Pages I found a firm — Crown Carpet Cleaning Service — doing "shampoo plus steam extraction." They provided same day service at an OK price. They only worked for cash, about which they told me right away.

In the afternoon, I moved all the furniture to the living room and started waiting. I fancied sizzling steam, powerful brushes beating up the shampoo foam, digging through which was the vacuum cleaner, leaving impecably clean path behind.

At the appointed time, a man that looked like a black bowling ball showed up. He was pulling a device with hoses. On entering the room, the Bowling Ball Man cast his glance on the traffic spots and proclaimed:

"Simple cleaning won't do here. You need a spot remover, a stronger chemical. It costs extra 10 dollars per room."

"Will it help?" I asked.

"Don't worry," the Bowling Ball Man said. "It's gonna be clean."

"Alright," I agreed. "What's the total?"

The Bowling Ball Man inspected the apartment.

"The bedroom is 15 dollars, spot removing 10. That makes it 25. Living room 20 dollars, spot removing 10. Makes it 30. Hallway 10, spots 10, together makes 20. We're talking about 75 dollars. In cash," he repeated.

"Alright, make it 75," I said, having counted on half as little before.

The Bowling Ball Man unwrapped his hoses, connected them to the tap in the bathroom, and started vigorously shuffling the steam cleaner on the carpet. He had no brushes. The spots wouldn't disappear and I grew skeptical. "Probably, he is yet to use the spot remover," I thought.

Meanwhile, the Bowling Ball Man went on, his boots stepping on the just-cleaned areas. I squatted and touched such an area. It wasn't steaming. A bit moist, that was it.

To get out of the Bowling Ball Man's way I exited to the kitchen and saw that his device was leaking right on the floor. The growing pool of water on the tiles had already wet a cardboard box in the closet.

"Hey," I said. "Cut it."

He stopped his machine.

"Tell me, did you know that it would leak?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Then why didn't you put a bowl under?"

"Because I'm going to vacuum it."

"What if there was something in there?" I pointed at the wet box.

"If there was something in there you'd probably have removed it," answered the Bowling Ball Man and turned his machine on again.

I wanted to tell him that I don't make it a habit to remove stuff from the kitchen when I'm cleaning the room, but then I just let it go. You can't teach one common sense.

Meanwhile, he finished and told me to move furniture back.

I thought that he wanted to clean the rooms first, and to remove spots then, and I asked him if I understood him correct.

"No," he said. "This room is already done."

"What do you mean?" I was startled. "What about this?" I pointed at the spots that didn't change at all. "I need them to be just like the rest of the carpet."

"They won't be like the rest of the carpet because they're high traffic areas."

"Then why did I pay you 10 dollars?"

"Because I used spot remover. It's a stronger chemical."

"I don't care about your spot remover. I care about the result," I thought squatting down. The carpet didn't look any different from before the cleaning.

"I agreed that you use spot remover because you said that it's gonna be clean," I said.

"It is clean," he responded.

"It is clean if the carpet's color is the same everywhere. And here," I pointed at the spots, "it is grey from traffic."

"That's how it's gonna be," the Bowling Ball Man said with conviction. "It'll never gonna be like it was before. Even if you get all the cleaners in Detroit to work on it for eight hours straight."

All the cleaners of Detroit sounded impressive, so I just murmured:

"So why did you tell me that it's gonna be clean?"

"It is clean."

I felt that our conversation is useless.

"Alright, I don't want to waste either my time or yours. How much do I owe you?"

He charged me twenty-five dollars and left without giving me a receipt. I put on the coat and went to the store, where I bought a spot remover foam in the spray and a brush for four-and-a-half bucks. On returning home, I chose the dirtiest area, sprayed some foam on it, scrubbed it with the brush, and cleaned it spotless.

The next day I called the Bowling Ball Man again.

"You said that these spots can't be removed, and I did remove them. You owe me ten dollars back."

"We don't do refunds," he said. "If you are not satisfied with our job, we can come and clean it again."

"Why would I want this again if you did a low-quality job the first time?"

"Well, it's up to you, if you don't want it, it's OK, but we don't do refunds."

"Okay," I said. "Then I will write an article about you on the Internet, and will make you an anti-advertisement. You will lose much more than 10 dollars."

"You sure can do that," he agreed.

Thus I got another webpage and they lost another client.