MY HOOVER NIGHTS

I live in a fantasy world.

I really do.

About some things (work, projects, friendship), I am responsible, focused, dedicated, a Detail Man to the last dot.

About others (money, housework, money...), I am the reluctant child, refusing to grow up and get on with it.

Year after year, I pay my taxes late - VERY LATE.

At home, I stumble through the dust and cobwebs until choices are minimized and The Big Clean Up must begin or else.

(Laundry is exempt. Laundry falls into my Obsessive Bin, and from there to the MACHINES!, bless their little whirling hearts.)

So...

Noticing that my vacuum cleaner did not seem to be really getting all the stuff and popcorn kernels from one of my favorite middle east rugs, I did the unthinkable.

Yes.

I ventured into - yuck! - the garage, dug out the vacuum cleaner box - you know, the one with all those attachments that look like they were made by a guy bending balloons for kids in a hospitable ward.

And there they were: two perfectly preserved bags of pristine, green vacuum bags.

I ripped one free from the plastic and read the instructions. It was the first time in...are you ready? Maybe, 10 years, so I had to read the instructions.

Open your vacuum, pull down the full bag. DO THEY HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT FULL REALLY MEANS? Push the roller forward. Pull off the old bag, etc, etc, etc...

O.K.

The full bag looked entirely like a beached whale.

The hose to which the full bag has been attached neigh these decades or so was so full of compacted dust and dirt that I had to take a pair of chopsticks from the kitchen drawer to extract and clean it.

All of this mess lay on the prepared Globe & Mail pages.

When I wrapped The Remains of the Day and carried my little baby down the several flights of stairs to the garbage bin behind the house, I looked and felt remarkably like someone in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, lovingly, dutifully carrying a pod person to bloom.

I appreciate that this is the second time in recent weeks that I've mentioned Body Snatchers and the Pod People.

Clearly these two movies have had a deep and lasting psychological imprint on me. Go explain.

I also watch Dexter, the TV episodic about a serial killer, but that's another story.

Now.

What about my Hoover?

Amazing.

Haven't seen sucking like this since, since..well, never you mind.

Suffice it to say, the carpets themselves are practically being devoured by my ancient Hoover. I mean I've had this thing for at least 20 + years.

O.K. I've only used it 50 or so times in all those years, and I've only changed the bag - tops - twice.

But.

What a beaut.

I love my Hoover.

I may complete rehabilitate myself and change the bag again before the calendar year is out.

Well. Let's not get carried away.

Maybe before next Passover.