Today, It Doesn't Suck to be Me

I've been using my project downtime to get some household projects done, things that I've been postponing mostly because I've been too busy, but also because the searing summer heat didn't magically end at Labor Day. Things like pulling up the dead weeds that have accumulated from my weed spraying the gravel in the back yard. Things like recovering the small garden along one side of the garage from the invasive weed that has almost choked out all of the plants. Things like reorganizing the garage to separate out the future garage sale items from the things that are waiting for cabinets to be installed to give them a home.

When it gets too warm outside (day times have been into the high 90s) or in the garage, I've been inside doing more of the same. Reorganizing the bathroom vanities, sorting out the linen closets... you get the idea. I've been busy with all of the "invisible work" -- the things that don't show until you don't do them.

Part of this effort has created a bit more mess inside. I've trimmed the plants, and picked out the dead leaves from the Boston fern. I've moved everything and dusted behind it. I've been through a whole box of Swiffer duster refills, along with half a bottle of furniture polish. I've piled things on the counters, only to move them from one side of the house to the other, or in from the garage to a new storage place, or outside to the garage for the garage sale bins.

The one thing I've not worried about is running the vacuum. I seems like every time I walk through the house with an armload, something more gets on the floor. The dirt and pieces of gunk have reached the point where they are visible to the naked eye when I'm standing up. I thought I would wait until this mess-creation phase had ended before I really cleaned the floor. Normally, I love the tile floors throughout my house, but when they are dirty, there is nothing worse!

But Wednesday, it got to me. I stepped out of the shower with wet, bare feet and walked into the family room. In just those few steps, I could feel that the water acted like adhesive, and there were hard bits of gunk now stuck to my feet. I sat down on the couch and rubbed my feet together to wipe it off. I got up, determined to reclaim my floor for bare feet and my sanity.

I went through the house and put all of the movable furniture up off the floor, pulled up the throw rugs, and prepared to vacuum. I started the job like an obsessive compulsive control freak who was on a mission. But my mission ran into trouble in five short minutes. The vacuum, a Eureka Boss that I truly love, started making noises in the beater motor area. I stopped, moved to the middle of the living room floor, and turned up the lights in the vacuum surgery suite. Phillips screwdriver in hand, I opened her up. I found a few large gunk chunks rattling around inside and a dime that I had missed in my previous scouting. I checked the brush and it was clear. The belt was solid and seemed to be the correct tension. I closed her up and turned her over, ready to resume my mission.

But when I turned it back on, I was greeted with a high whine, and before I could fumble in my bare feet to find the off switch, the whine increased and I caught a whiff of the dreaded engine overheating smell. In my heart, I knew I had just lost the battle. But before I gave up, I opened her back up one last time, hoping that I would understand something new in that recently familiar place. But no such luck.

This vacuum joined my household five years before, and I wasn't ready to just throw it out. I went to the computer and opened up the PDF of the user manual I had downloaded from the company website a couple years ago when I couldn't find the important place where I had filed the original. It seems that my vacuum needed a trip to that appliance spa they like to call the repair shop, where they sit around without doing any work, get massaged, and run up a huge bill. I wasn't going down that road this time.

I logged into Consumer Reports and began researching vacuum options. I found a best buy rated upright vac, another Eureka Boss model, and began doing some price checking online. After filling and abandoning several site shopping carts (the only way to get the shipping price quoted to you) I realized that the online price savings was balanced out by the shipping costs.

Tomorrow, I'll be hitting a couple of stores to see if I can get a good price on my new vacuum. But until then, nothing in my house sucks, including me. And I'm making an effort to avoid wet, bare feet until I know the coast is clear.