The Vacuum Cleaner Died Today

With two dogs in my house I vacuum the carpets a lot.  Like four or five times a week a lot.  I've had my Hoover V2 superwhatever vacuum for about nine years now, so I should not have been surprised when in the middle of vacuuming smoke started pouring out of it, the beater bars stopped, and the electric circuit breaker for the living room was tripped.  I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.  The living room was full of smoke.  The smell was horrible!  Burning rubber and something else, something electrical.  Opening the windows to the house was not an option with all of the heat and humidity outside, so I turned on all of the fans & sprayed air freshener everywhere.  Yeah, that really helped, NOT.  The dogs actually asked to be let outside.  Their normal attitude is that being locked outside is a horrific punishment, however under these circumstances they were happy to sweat it out in the heat & humidity for the benefit of fresh air.  My gut told me to just chuck the thing in the trash, it was definitely dead.  However, the part of me that really doesn't have the money for a new vacuum insisted I at least make an attempt to see what was wrong.  I spent the afternoon taking apart the entire vacuum & hoping it was just something as simple as a belt that needed replacing.  I hoped in vain.  The engine had obviously had a meltdown & I know of no cure for a dead vacuum cleaner engine.  So, into the trash the pieces went.  And off to Sears I went.

The salesman probably thinks I'm a bit nuts.  I looked at every model there & just wasn't thrilled with any of them because none of them were my dead vacuum.  The design of vacuum cleaners really has changed in the last 9 years.  I finally settled on the latest generation of Hoover's V2 superwhatever after the rather confused salesman managed to find one that wasn't orange.  He tried to explain that the color of the vacuum had nothing to do with the accessories or cleaning power - duh - and was befuddled when I told him that I knew that, but just couldn't live with an orange vacuum even if it was on sale & I'd go to a store that had a different color if I had to.  Men just don't get the color thing - especially if it happens to be the color of their favorite sports team & Tennesseans LOVE orange.  So now I have a red & white upright boxy looking thing that tried to suck the entire carpet up with the dirt when I turned it on tonight.  It's got a pretty cool detachable hose with an extension hose for getting the cobwebs and a bare floor attachment that my other vac didn't have, I like that part of it.  But it doesn't maneuver as well (it's too busy sucking face with the floor) and I don't like the design of the bagless dirt cup as well as the one on my old vac.  I suppose, given time, I'll end up liking this one too.  

I know that the vacuum cleaner's death is not the end of the world.  In the grand scheme of things, it's nothing.  But, it consumed pretty much my entire day and put a huge dent in my pocketbook by the time all was said and done.  So, today, the vacuum cleaner's death was a large part of my world.  I hope I won't have to say that again for another nine years.