When to turn around and leave

[Susan Kline]

At 12:14 PM 12/31/2005 -0800, you wrote:
>Susan --
>
>Your fire looks wonderful.
>
>I, too, routinely clean the keys. The visual impact to the customer can be
>quite dramatic. Sometimes enough so that they don't notice that their 60
>year old broken down console still sounds like junk. My goal, after all, is
>a happy customer. And staying healthy in the process.
>
>-- Geoff Sykes
>-- Assoc. Los Angeles

Hi, Geoff

I was unprepared for how much I enjoyed watching the fire. I clean the
ceramic door every time I load the stove. (It's easy ...)

I sometimes give customers lessons in cleaning keys. Barely damp
washcloth (wet one corner and squeeze into the rest), and a tiny
dab of toothpaste -- rub like mad, clean off the toothpaste
afterwards. Safe, and works. They don't always follow through.
A couple of times I've come five years later, and there was my
patch of five clean keys, with the rest just as they had been.
<grin>

I tell them that once they have cleaned using the toothpaste,
a plain barely damp washcloth should be all they need. It often is
a thirty-year buildup, after all. I wonder how many colds and cases
of flu I've prevented by teaching people how to clean keys?

It never occurs to them to clean the fronts of the naturals,
and the sides of the sharps, unless I show them. I hate those
sharps that bleed color when wet, though.

Susan