What is it about children that always seem to keep excitement or chaos going in a parent’s life? I get tons of inspiration from my kids for scenes in my novels. One novel has a heroine with two children, a boy who’s in his early teens and a girl of five. Another novel has the heroine trying to find her grown daughter who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
I have four under my roof who are mine, and two older stepsons. The other day I vacuumed the kitchen-well, I tried to vacuum it. I purchased a new sweeper last year that cost about $200. After about a month, I began having trouble with it. Actually, I have horrible luck with sweepers; it seems that I’m always blowing up the motors or the belts keep breaking. So, we picked up an old Kirby at a yard sale as a backup.
Every time I tried to use the new vacuum I’d always end up getting the Kirby out, the old reliable dinosaur. Sometimes the new sweeper would work, but most of the time it blew dust everywhere making me cuss and choke at the same time.
Back to the kitchen…I’m vacuuming and dust blows out everywhere. Muttering expletives under my breath, I pulled the hose lose for the millionth time. I turned the sweeper upside down and looked for hairballs, wads of paper, etc., that my kids are notorious for sucking up when they sweep.
I yanked a monstrous dust bunny from the opening by the spindle, turned the sweeper on, and even more dust flew out.
Furious, I performed the same checks again.
Then I spotted it. A wad of debris was wedged against the hole that deposits the dirt into the hepifilter (sp?) thingamajig. I found a Phillips screwdriver, disconnected the hose, and pulled about 8 inches of compacted dust and hair out of it.
But something kept sliding back and forth in the tube.
Upending it, I dumped a Hotwheels car out onto the floor.
“Hey,” my four year old yelled. “I’ve been looking for that car forever!”
Yeah. Lots of story fodder for my stories.
So, I put the sweeper tube back on, screwed the screws down tight, turned it on-the motor squealed and blew up.
Which was followed by the handle breaking in two.
Thank God for the Kirby!
Maybe I’ll buy an Oreck or one of those Dyson Ball vacuums with my next royalty check, lol.
August 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
That’s why I always buy the cheap ones! I’ve had mine now for 5 years paid 20 for it at best buy a dirt devil. Well it is finally wearing down so I’ll have to buy another, but hey for 20 bucks I got my monies worth. My mom also picks some up at garage sales real cheap so I just might have her look for one for me.
Trinity
August 14th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Faith, you have worse luck than I do. I just bought a new vac, but I’d worn the old one out. I had a bagless Hoover and it did me proud for a long time. I just bought a Eureka as a replacement…not expensive and does the job. Even has a pet hair attachment, but I did look at the Dyson’s. They are expensive!! Sorta backed off real slow. lol.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Hey, if you have enough to buy a high-priced vacuum with one royalty check, you’re good.
Them dang things are like 200-300$.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am
I remember my mom had a kirby I think. If not it was one of the other dinasaurs. The base looked like R2DU from Star Wars, it had a bucket that clipped on the bottom and I always had to take it out and toss it. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. I’ve gone through five in two years and two 300 dollar carpet cleaners for the never ending spills.
August 15th, 2009 at 1:28 am
That’s not a Kirby, Hales. Those are the old Rainbow sweepers. My mom had one of those when I was a kid too. I was the one who always had to dump the dirty water, lol.
August 15th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Don’t mess with the cheap one, get one from Sears with an extended warrenty. I blew up the motor last year and they replaced it. My cost $0.
Janice~