27 January 2009

Busted: The Blue Vacuum


I'm not sure why I took a photo of the guts of our broken vacuum. Perhaps I sensed a pattern when it tanked just hours after the Santa episode.

Plastic shrapnel and acrid burning wire.
It was like a scene from an appliance war movie. Frightened villagers running for cover and all that.


The Blue Vacuum was not fancy. Steve and I bought it with gift monies from our wedding. We bought what we could afford, which wasn't much, but it was sufficient to suck up whatever found its way to the carpet of our tiny first apartment. Then the second apartment. And then our townhouse.
Then we got a couple of cats (and the fur and dander that goes with them.) The Blue Vacuum still held its own.
We had a baby. Then we had another baby. We moved into a house and doubled the square footage required of The Blue Vacuum.
And then had another baby.

Cheerios, cat fur, mud clumps, grass clippings, dead bugs, soon-to-be-dead bugs, an accidental shoelace or two, the edges of the rug (also accidental), and sometimes even it's own cord: The Blue Vacuum sucked it all with vim and vigor.

Then one day in December, 13 years later, it met entropy in a big way.

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4 Comments:

Blogger Sarah said...

Definitely decay...both of the vacuum and of the Santa episode...a fitting end, in some ways. Very much in the flavor of Christmas and Easter.

1:47 PM  
Blogger nikongirl said...

Get a Dyson. I think I'm secretly having a love affair with mine. But please - don't tell anyone.

Don't you hate it when stuff like that happens? I had an episode something like that in my life last week and it left me weak and drained. Maybe I'll share with you soon.

2:17 PM  
Blogger Abby said...

That was the most beautiful tribute to an appliance I've ever read. I feel like I KNEW your vacuum. I feel like I've held the handle, heard the whirring, I feel like I've smelled the burning scent it probably gave off after a few years of shoelaces.

Thanks for including us in your loss. Now I feel like I can mourn right along side you.

4:26 PM  
Blogger Childress Family said...

http://sweetcarolannagirl.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-02-12T23%3A27%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=50

The above link will take you to a post I published last year about the same problem! The funniest part is, I ended up putting that old Hoover on the curb the night before the trash truck came, and a trash pirate had picked it up by dawn's early light. Hope they're still enjoying it!! I ended up getting an Oreck XL. To my dismay, I learned last week Orecks are now on sale for $200 less than what I paid...grr...good luck!

2:49 PM  

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