Our vacuum cleaner has been dying for the past year or so, its suction slowly waning until only the hose would ingest the proffered dust, dirt, hair, and crumbs. So I’d vacuum the whole apartment with the hose, a tedious, inefficient process that was the height of domestic banality and evoked near-lethal amounts of self-pity. And then, sometime last month, even the hose stopped working.
“I abhor this vacuum,” I’d declare. “This vacuum sucks. Because… it’s not sucking.” As much fun as it was to make vacuum-related puns during my semi-tri-monthly house cleanings, the whole thing bothered me immensely. I can’t relax on my yoga mat when I can see, smell, and taste the mites and allergens that coat our hardwood floor. I had been reduced to using a broom like some medieval chambermaid.
Since the sucky non-sucking vacuum was not worth getting repaired, we decided to invest in a new vacuum — another sub-$100 model that will probably die in a few years, but by then maybe we’d be willing to invest in one of those 1000-watt motor marvels with a 20-year warranty. Until then, we’re going to Sears.
The lady working the vacuum department in Sears had not one, but two lazy eyes. She was large, middle-aged and spoke with a dripping Boston accent. Yet make no mistake: This woman was a vacuum cleaner hustler.
“Those have no suction,” she started off straight away, gesturing towards the lower-end canister vacuums we were looking at. “Good if you live in dorm room or a studio apartment… that one can’t get under furniture, so if you’re one of those really clean people, I wouldn’t recommend it. Of course, not everyone want to maintain that level of cleanliness… when you empty the bin on that one, you’re going to get a face full of dust… you’ll have trouble cleaning carpets with that one.”
“We don’t have carpets,” I told her, a bit triumphantly. “We have a smallish hardwood floor apartment and we just need something simple.” I turned my hopeful attention to a $70 Kenmore upright vacuum.
She aimed her fishy gaze at it. “Noisy as heck, that one. Turn it on if you don’t believe me.”
Mr. P seemed keen on a Bissell canister. When buying appliances, he is extremely brand-conscious; he doesn’t trust brands that he has never heard of. “What is this, Hoover?” he asked, his accent turning it into a very disdainful “Hoo-verrr.”
“Hoover’s actually a well-known brand in the vacuum world,” I assured him. “I think they, like, made the first modern vacuum.”
“Hoo-verrr,” he said again, testing out the word. After a lengthy pause, he said “J. Edgar.” Which made me giggle.
Since I do 95% of the vacuuming, I had the final say, and I went with the noisy upright Kenmore model. “I like the feel of upright vacuums,” I said, pushing and pulling it along the swath of test carpet. “The canisters just don’t feel right to me.”
The saleswoman refrained from making disparaging remarks about my selection as she rang us up, although she obviously thought it was a big mistake that we turned down the 2-year service plan. “This is such a racket,” Mr. P grumbled as he carried our new purchase back to the parking garage. “I give this vacuum one year, tops.”
Regardless of the vacuum’s future lifecycle, right now it works like a dream. “This vacuum sucks!” I exclaimed, elated, gaping with satisfaction at the scary amount of floor crap that ended up in the vacuum’s bin after the first use. “It really, really sucks!”
