When good vacuum cleaners go bad
27th June, 2007
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As old, battered and noisy as it was, it worked and I had become rather fond of it. It had been eight years since I'd bought my red vacuum cleaner and while I had vowed several times to replace it with a quieter, more efficient model, in the end sentiment always ruled and the roaring red monster remained.
I detest housework and if we ever get rich will employ a maid, but until that day, Saturday is house chores day. On this Saturday I had been particularly industrious, dusting and polishing and wondering all the while how two people in one apartment could generate so much dirt. The vacuuming I had left until last, after which I would sit back and, bottle of beer in hand, admire our gleaming furniture and flawless floors. The vacuum roared into life and I went into my routine which involves whingeing to myself, fantasising about housemaids in short skirts and low-cut blouses and hauling the vacuum behind me. Then I noticed some cobwebs and, moving into hunter-killer mode, I advanced, ready to retreat at a moment's notice and hide in the bathroom if any spiders appeared. Removing the attachment from the end of the vacuum, the better to suck up the offending cobwebs with the nozzle, I began to hoover them out of the corner of the room, being careful to avoid the long cords that hung down from the blinds. You've heard of domesticated pets turning wild. One moment they are lying lovingly at their master's feet and the next they are uncontrollable. I'll never know what provoked the vacuum to go feral. Perhaps after all these years it had tired of being pushed and pulled around. Whatever the reason, it suddenly lunged forward and attacked the cords. In an instant, they had been sucked into its innards. I pulled back on the nozzle but it kept devouring great lengths of cord and the chrome fittings on the ends. By the time I was able to turn it off, it had ingested several metres of cord and had climbed halfway up the wall. If I hadn't killed the power it would have devoured not only the cords but the blinds themselves. It had all happened very quickly. I sat back and looked at the vacuum nozzle suspended on the wall with the remaining length of the cords protruding from its mouth. I pulled at the cords but they wouldn't budge. As my self-control started to evaporate, I pulled harder and then harder. Bugger! Seconds later there was a clang! as the steel cleat around which the upper part of the cords were still secured flew off the wall, leaving a jagged hole in the timber from where I'd ripped the two screws that had been securing it. I thought about cutting the cords but then the blinds would have fallen down. I'd have no way of raising them and would have to get new cords installed. I informed my pregnant wife who was relaxing in the lounge room. She listened in silence.
"The vacuum cleaner ate the blind cords?" she asked.
No matter how hard I pulled on the cords, they wouldn't budge, being lodged firmly in the intestines of the vacuum. "I'm sorry it's come to this," I said, moving to the kitchen and returning with a large, serrated bread knife, "but you asked for it." It fought back gamely, wriggling and writhing as I hacked into the flexible grey hose that linked the nozzle to the vacuum body, but it was all over in a minute, one final stroke exposing the innards of the hose and the cord tangled therein. Bathed in perspiration, I slumped into the lounge chair next to my wife. I'd killed my vacuum cleaner. I couldn't bear looking at its remains so I collected them, hauled them downstairs and threw the lot in the skip. It wasn't a particularly ceremonious send-off but I didn't have the energy to give it a decent burial. We've since bought a new one. It's blue and could suck, as a friend of mine was once wont to say, the chrome off a towbar, but the memory of Old Red lingers still. |
