The good news is, our economic stimulus package showed up in our bank account today.
The bad news is, some of it will have to be spent on something as mundane and necessary as a new vacuum cleaner. I can't think of anything I would less prefer to buy with bonus money.
But our vacuum cleaner finally broke today. It was never a very good vacuum, and I never really liked it, but sometimes, when you move into an apartment and it's covered in paint dust, you need a vacuum, and you need it now. So we bought a cheap one and have just dealt with it since.
In its defense, we put it through a lot of abuse over the last few years. We used it to clean up after all kinds of projects that were probably technically beyond its ability level, but oh well. And I'm not sure it was ever the same after those few times that Jeremy used it unsupervised without knowledge of all its quirks or even basic instructions.
I knew it was a dud when the upholstery cleaning attachment broke. Not only did it break, it was unfixable. Not even by a professional - the housing of the brush tool component was not meant to open, ever, so the part that was broken, which we could easily have fixed, was trapped forever. Who designs a tool like that?
The final straw was today when I turned on the vacuum, vacuumed our entire bedroom, and realized that it hadn't picked up anything. The suction was completely gone.
Obviously, I'm not too broken up about having to throw out the vacuum that doesn't suck. I've come to the realization that appliances just aren't meant to last that long these days. In our house, we still use, without any problems, a dishwasher, washer, and dryer that are all more than 15 years old. But a three-year-old vacuum? Way past its prime.
So does anyone have any strong opinions about vacuums that they'd like to share? I'm ready to go out and stimulate the economy with a new vacuum purchase sometime in the next couple of days.
The bad news is, some of it will have to be spent on something as mundane and necessary as a new vacuum cleaner. I can't think of anything I would less prefer to buy with bonus money.
But our vacuum cleaner finally broke today. It was never a very good vacuum, and I never really liked it, but sometimes, when you move into an apartment and it's covered in paint dust, you need a vacuum, and you need it now. So we bought a cheap one and have just dealt with it since.
In its defense, we put it through a lot of abuse over the last few years. We used it to clean up after all kinds of projects that were probably technically beyond its ability level, but oh well. And I'm not sure it was ever the same after those few times that Jeremy used it unsupervised without knowledge of all its quirks or even basic instructions.
I knew it was a dud when the upholstery cleaning attachment broke. Not only did it break, it was unfixable. Not even by a professional - the housing of the brush tool component was not meant to open, ever, so the part that was broken, which we could easily have fixed, was trapped forever. Who designs a tool like that?
The final straw was today when I turned on the vacuum, vacuumed our entire bedroom, and realized that it hadn't picked up anything. The suction was completely gone.
Obviously, I'm not too broken up about having to throw out the vacuum that doesn't suck. I've come to the realization that appliances just aren't meant to last that long these days. In our house, we still use, without any problems, a dishwasher, washer, and dryer that are all more than 15 years old. But a three-year-old vacuum? Way past its prime.
So does anyone have any strong opinions about vacuums that they'd like to share? I'm ready to go out and stimulate the economy with a new vacuum purchase sometime in the next couple of days.