When I was a kid, I remember seeing men, clad in white polo shirts with black (or maroon!) neckties and black pants, going from one door to another with a pleasant smile stuck on their faces, selling the most essential household gadget at that time: vacuum cleaners.

And because vacuum cleaners were sold from house to house (with a more personal sales talk from the men in white), it occurred to me that these cleaners were only for the selected few who were chosen by, well, the vacuum cleaner company or the salesmen themselves. Otherwise, why not let it just sit at the mall and wait for customers to grab it (I honestly thought that vacuum cleaners were not sold at the mall)? I thought, it must be that special.

As years passed by, the men clad in white became less. And less. And less. Then gone. Vacuum cleaners became, in my opinion, less popular. No more sales talk. No more strollers carrying vacuum cleaners. No more white polo shirt with necktie.

However, these cleaners have recently been making a comeback. No, not on our doorstep, but in the it's-all-here world of the internet. Dyson vacuums can now be bought online for a couple of hundreds of dollars, with matching user reviews and product popularity. What's good to have it online is that you get opinions from different people who have actually used the product -- that's more than the sales talk of one single person!

Hay. Just imagine how the world has evolved. Vacuum cleaners from salesmen to the internet. Is it just me or is it the world? Am I getting too old or is the world moving forward too much? Whatever it is, I know something's brewing. There's more to come. We all have to watch out.

Labels: vacuum cleaners