On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

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ohsocynical
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On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by ohsocynical »

This week after a walk that left my cheeks tingling with the sudden drop in temperature, it was time to dive into the back of my wardrobe and sort out my gloves, scarf, and warm socks.
It's always depressing having to bring out the warm clothing that I pack away in spring, wishing I never needed to see it again, but winter was once again giving me a nudge.

As I pulled the contents of my winter woollies drawer out, it was the most puzzling thing. Somehow I've ended up with four odd gloves and it's been so many months since I tucked them away that I can't remember what might have happened to their mates.
One odd glove you could excuse - but four? You would think over the course of spring and summer the missing gloves would have turned up in a coat pocket or under the seat in the car - but they haven't although on reflection I have a good idea where they might have gone.

I'm a bit old fashioned. I don't want a vacuum cleaner that looks more like something from outer space than a household appliance: the sort of cleaner that is a tangle of coloured plastic with a clear tube that you watch in horrified fascination as muck and fluff in huge amounts swirls around when you run it over the carpet.
I find it bad enough having to do the floors at all without wondering where it all comes from accompanied by crushing guilt because I don't vacuum enough.
Instead I have a powerful but plain machine with a thick disposable dust bag that makes short work of anything that comes within six inches of its metal head, and when the bag is full I throw it in the dustbin without so much as a by your leave.

The trouble is my cleaner is so powerful I barely notice the slight hiatus in its full-throated roar when I push it under a chair and it sucks up something bulky. And no I don't bend down to check before I begin, because vacuum cleaner designers get paid a lot of money to save me the bother of having to do just that.
Which of course brings me back to my four missing gloves. Being made of synthetic fur and leather, I have no doubt they're in some distant landfill nestling under a blanket of black plastic bags, along with odd socks, crayons, tissues and cat's hair. And that leaves me wondering what archaeologists, in the far distant future will make of it when they excitedly scrape away with their trowels, and shower praise on my slovenly habits, as they uncover all the imperishable items that I so carelessly sucked off my living room floor, hundreds if not thousand of years before.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
yahyah
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by yahyah »

It'll cause some puzzled theories on Time Team 3014.
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LadyCentauria
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by LadyCentauria »

They will probably put all the single gloves and socks down to being of ritual significance ;)
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ohsocynical
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by ohsocynical »

I wonder who'll find my engagement ring?
I used to let my [teenage then] daughter look at it. She forgot to tell me she'd dropped it on the floor and couldn't find it, until weeks after I'd done a rare spring clean and thrown out the vacuum dust bag. :roll: Good job I love her.
Last edited by ohsocynical on Tue 25 Nov, 2014 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
ohsocynical
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by ohsocynical »

LadyCentauria wrote:They will probably put all the single gloves and socks down to being of ritual significance ;)
Or a one armed hunter gatherer :lol: :lol: :lol:
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
ohsocynical
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by ohsocynical »

yahyah wrote:It'll cause some puzzled theories on Time Team 3014.
I get really annoyed I won't be around then.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
ohsocynical
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by ohsocynical »

Oooh. Michael White is following me :shock:

Was it because I said Paterson was a badger killing, climate change denying, inept Environment Minister and grudge bearer? :smack: :lol:
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop
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LadyCentauria
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by LadyCentauria »

ohsocynical wrote:I wonder who'll find my engagement ring?
I used to let my [teenage then] daughter look at it. She forgot to tell me she'd dropped it on the floor and couldn't find it, until weeks after I'd done a rare spring clean and thrown out the vacuum dust bag. :roll: Good job I love her.
Oh that is a really sad loss! But one day it might be the star object on the equivalent of Antiques Roadshow and the finder will very happy indeed.

I've lost count of the things I've lost up vacuum-cleaners. For years I had a Nilfisk cylinder one, bought through the liquidation sale when a company I did some work for closed down. That was about 1979/80 and it lived until 2005 when it conked out. It must already have been at least 10 years old when I got it and it was seriously powerful. My son (who works in the domestic appliances industry) gave me a Miéle Cat & Dog vacuum-cleaner as a replacement – and that it a hungry beast, too! Excellent machine but not as easily manoeuverable as the Nilfisk.

But, over the years, I've also spent a lot of time getting filthy through extricating things from the bags when I know something has gone up the hose. Plectra, especially...
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Rebecca
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by Rebecca »

I firmly believe that the dyson is the work of the devil.
I'm very fond of my hetty,henrys' sister.Sucks up anything,simple and strong.
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TheGrimSqueaker
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by TheGrimSqueaker »

I quite like Dysons.

Ohso the answer to the glove conundrum was solved, as so many things are, by Terry Pratchett; in Hogfather they discovered that all the missing socks were due to the Eater Of Socks (see below), you obviously have a sub species living under your floorboards.
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51A
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by 51A »

Re: Vacuum cleaners. Whatever you do, don't spend your money on a Dyson. They are heavy, unwieldy and don't do the job in my experience. I haven't yet known anyone who bought one designed to suck up animal hair, for instance, to be happy with their device's ability to suck up animal hair. And mine tries to drag me back down the stairs backwards when I try to use its over-engineered hose bit to clean the stairs. It's designed to spring back into place, so all the while I'm trying to get it to extend, it's trying to spring back. I'm going back to a Henry at about a quarter of the price of my Dyson.

Re: Gloves. They just do that, I mean separate. You buy them in 2s, they become 1s, almost every year. I stopped saving the other one as I never did find the first one. Ever!
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adam
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Re: On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners

Post by adam »

I spent a year doing a bit of an odd job in the prison service, escorting contractors about half of the time, and they all had clean up responsibilities, fairly heavy duty clean up,and they all had Henrys (Henries?). All of them.
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