Real English Thirty-Five: music to my ears

It is October.
When I think of October, I think of playoff baseball, Okinawa and typhoons, and pumpkins, witches, and Halloween.
What comes to your mind first when you hear "October"?

And, as I have told many of you, I will move in a few weeks.
So, the other day, after my wife placed an inquiry on some "moving company site". Immediately after she placed the inquiry, about 5 companies contacted us.  We asked the first three companies which called to come to our apartment to give us an estimate.  We thought 3 was enough. So, we had to reject the two companies which called after the first three.  You could say that those last two companies "Missed the boat!"

On the phone, I told each of the three companies the same thing:
"I will be here from 2 to 4 pm, so please come any during that time.  Also, please know that there may be another moving company here while you are here.  If that is a problem, please let me know."
They all said, "No problem."

First, a salesman from company A arrived. He gave us a small bag of rice, was very professional and politely and patiently listened to all of our requests.  I liked him. And the estimate he gave us, 147,000 yen for everything included, was just under my budget of 150, so I thought, "Not bad."  The next guy who gave us an estimate was from company B.  I don't remember if he gave us any gift or not. He was also professional.  The two big differences between the salesman from company A and B were:
1. The Company B Guy was much faster than Company A Guy. Company B Guy was in and out of our place, in total about 20 minutes.  In a good way, you could say he was efficient.  In a bad way, you could say he was too fast.  In comparison, Company A Guy spent about 45 minutes to an hour there.
2.  Company B Guy's estimate was considerably more expensive than Company A's...about 180,000, not including trash removal.  His company doesn't do that. Instead, he recommended a "trash and recycling company" which handles that.

So, now, the only guy left in our apartment was from Company C. To be honest, I was thinking  "Come on buddy, speed it up" because I wanted him to leave as soon as possible so I could get on with my day.  In addition, I had 99.9 % already decided on Company A.  In my head, I was like, "I am gonna use Company A. I am sure that Company C's estimate will be around the same as Company A, and the guy from Company A was nice, plus my wife likes him..."

So after what seemed like an eternity, the guy from Company C said, "When can you decide by?"
I said, "Sometime this week."
He said, "Well, if you can decide now, then I can do it all for 100,000."
I was very surprised....pleasantly surprised.
I said, "Sir, that is music to my ears!! Give me a pen and where do I sign!"

That goes to show you. It ain't over til it's over.  You never know about that .1%.