It’s a little embarrassing to admit but for nearly two years my wife and I have been watching a lot of WWE. It’s a guilty pleasure after a long, hard day of work.
Getting into wrestling, you pick up the lingo. “Jobbers” are those “never have a chance” losers that the crowd favorite generally beats. “Kayfabe” is the act of sticking to the story as if all the scripted performing they are doing is truly, actually, real. And then there is “getting over“.
To “get over” in wrestling is to “get over” with the crowd and make them love you. Sometimes the person in question gets over on their own. And sometimes another person has to help that person get over.
Needless to say I tend to try to get a lot of people “over” on The Morning Blend.
One of our long time clients and guests are the Las Vegas franchise of Zerorez, a carpet cleaning company. Brad and Ben McKee have been coming on the program for years with great success. Every time they come on, they take the dingiest, dirtiest piece of tossed out carpet they can find, make it even dirtier, and clean it before our every eyes, live, with a hose snaking into the studio from one of their service trucks outside the station.
While “live demos” are a dance with Murphy’s Law, and up until just recently the boys killed it. But whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And this past visit, it did.
They brought in a carpet with two incredibly black marks. “We put a pump that was leaking oil on it” one of them told me nervously before we went on. As they started their live demo, I prefaced their actions to the audience by saying “This is probably the toughest test they’ve ever had on the show”. It was. This stain was not budging. The guys were sweating bullets. They knew if they could just get to the truck, they have techniques they can use to get it out. But, the truck isn’t in the studio.
“I’m getting a little worried…obviously we’re failing at this,” said Ben, nervous that the demo isn’t going well. “If I could run out to our truck right now, we can get this out”.
“Kill it for a second,” I declared, Brad putting a halt to what was a losing effort. It was time to “put them over”.
Half a dozen clients are watching in the back of the studio, along with a few staff members, who I knew could make some noise and show support.
“A round of applause for these gentlemen!” The in-studio audience clapped. “They’ve been on this show for – how many years now?! (Two or three). OK. They’ve put more stuff… they’ve thrown cranberry sauce, they’ve thrown gravy… you’ve torture tested! You’ve parked your trucks on this! If you put a dirty pump that leaks oil on your carpet, maybe you need to replace that piece.” (Or, perhaps, maybe you deserve it.)
Ben was adamant that they could get the stain out, and I believe him because I believe in the product. I don’t work with clients whose products are snake oil.
“If we give you til the end of the show, you can get that stain out?”. Ben, almost relieved at the chance for redemption blurted out “YES!”.
“OK we will have you on at the end of the show, and if that carpet is clean, I will lick that carpet. I’ll lick it.” Save whatever inappropriate joke you’ve come up with because I already used them all post-show.
The guys took that carpet out to the alley like two mobsters about to do a hit, and we continued with the show.
Come the end of the show, damn, would you believe it, that section of carpet was absolutely spotless. Showroom quality.
I got on both knees, as if I were praying to the Mecca of carpet cleaning, bent down, and took a solid carpet licking.
They got over.
There is no doubt to anybody watching that that carpet is clean because there’s no way in hell I’m licking an oil stain. I just wanted these guys who, frankly, put a hell of a lot of effort into making carpet cleaning seem fun and exciting, to look like heroes.
Moral of the story… Don’t spill motor oil on your carpet.
