On Reflection - Vacuum Cleaners
Posted: Tue 25 Nov, 2014 2:27 pm
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.
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.