Teen with autism gets visit from vacuum salesman, has the best birthday ever

Dylan Johnson was never really into toys. Instead, since the age of 2, he’s been passionate about vacuum cleaners.

So Dylan’s mother, Jodie Greene, invited a vacuum salesman to his 14th birthday party, giving her son a birthday he’ll never forget.

Greene wrote an email to the Kirby Company, explaining her son’s love for the brand’s machines.

“I am reaching out to you in hopes for an answer to an unusual request for my son who is autistic,” she wrote.

“He has always been obsessed with vacuum cleaners. His favourite is the Kirby. He spends hours every day watching videos on his tablet about different Kirby’s. When he isn’t watching videos about them, he is talking about them.”

She continued:

“I really would LOVE to get a demo done for him for his birthday. In fact, I am even getting him a cake made that looks like a Kirby vacuum. I am writing to you in hopes that you can get me in touch with a way to get him this demo. I want to be clear that I do not intend on purchasing a Kirby. I was hoping that I could pay a flat fee or thought that maybe if you have salesmen in training that needs to get in practice demos for training purposes. I do not want anything free, but as the mother of a special needs child, it is so hard to find things to make my son happy. I know that having this demo done would just be so awesome, and it would warm my heart to see him so excited to experience that.”

The Kirby Company didn’t hesitate in making Dylan’s birthday a memorable one. In addition to sending Dylan a soccer ball, hat and T-shirt with the Kirby logo on it, the company sent Kirby salesman Al Archie to perform a vacuum demonstration at the party.

“He knew more about the Kirby than I did,” Archie, who has been selling vacuums for 25 years, told WTVR. “I have never experienced anything like that.”

At the end of his demonstration, Archie presented Dylan with his very own Kirby vacuum.

“I planned I wanted to do something for him,” Archie said. “[It was] an opportunity to give something back.”

“There was not a dry eye in the house,” Greene said of the generous gift, adding that she expects to have the cleanest carpets in the county.