I call Sandi, my co-dependent
in the writing vice, to say I'll be over, soon as I dispatch the
vacuum cleaner salesman.
With disbelief and
a hint of scolding, she says, "Don't you have one already?"
Whether she means the
machine or the salesman, I'm not sure but answer, "Yeah, an upright."
My tone of voice is somewhere between Ivana Trump discussing peasants
and Julia Child answering a question about non-fat cheese.
I was raised on the
prestigious Electrolux. But when Andrés (he used to sell vacuum
cleaners) and I became lovers, he barked about my current Electrolux
and raved about uprights. Surely, I thought, he would help clean
house more often if I got the macho thing he recommended. I bought
an upright.
Last week, my house-cleaner
resigned, so for the first time in months I pulled the upright
from the closet to clean house myself. Three different pieces
of plastic hung like loose teeth off this hunk of equipment. Six
hundred dollars and seven years later, Andrés has used the powerhouse
once–to surprise me after a weekend I was away without him.
I'm now mad as hell,
and I'm not going to lug that tower of power around anymore. Give
me back those hose-tripping days of my youth. I made an appointment
with the company that sells the dream machine of my childhood;
the guy was supposed to come this morning. Spending more than
$50 at a time makes me indecisive.
So today, half an hour
before the salesman is to knock on my door, I call a local outlet
that sells refurbished and new vacuum cleaners. I ask specifically
about the Electrolux and tell the owner the woeful tale about
the upright’s unrequited relationship with Andrés.
She sympathizes, but
alerts me: “Have you seen the new Electrolux? They're plastic
now. Not the sturdy, powerful machine you remember. And they’re
way overpriced."
I bless her and call
to cancel the salesman twenty-five minutes before our appointment.
Even though his office is forty-five minutes away, his secretary
says, "No problem! He hasn't left his office yet." (His late-without-calling-
rudeness far outweighs my late cancellation, doesn't it?)
I hop in the car, buy
just what I need locally from the sympathetic owner for a third
the price of that figment of my history. In addition to a flaming
red bullet-shaped “Quiet Storm” (no kidding), I acquired a reminder:
Some things change, like how vacuum cleaners are manufactured.
And some things don't
change, like there’s no filter for men allergic to housecleaning.
