Sucks like a Hoover

Everyone should have a vacuum - they're quite useful objects, really. When I was in my first year at Dal, I did not own a vacuum. When it came time to clean my floor, I would spend copious quantities of time furiously pushing an antiquated carpet cleaner back and forth over the threadbare carpet. Then I would pick up the leftover chunks of dirt by hand. Hardly an ideal situation.

When I was in my second year, my mom bought me a little yellow and black canister vacuum. I called it The Bumblebee. It didn't have a lot of sucking power, but it was ten times better than the carpet cleaner. Besides, my apartment that year was so small there was hardly any free floor space to get dirty.

In third year, I rented a furnished apartment. It came with its own grown-up vacuum.

When I moved out on my own in Charlottetown, my apartment had hardwood floors, which The Bumblebee managed to clean quite adequately.

Since I've been in Fredericton, I've kept using The Bumblebee. It's alright for surface cleaning. For example, it does an excellent job of sucking up Christmas tree needles. But it doesn't have enough oomph for a deep down clean. So today I decided it was time to graduate to a real vacuum.

I decided to go to Sears. My mom recently bought a nice vacuum there, so I figured it was a safe bet. I really don't know a whole lot about vacuums, so I hovered in front of the vacuum section, looking perplexed and trying to attract the attention of a salesperson.

Easier said than done. The salesperson was busy watching Drew Carey on the wall of televisions. Maybe she didn't see me. I walked around the vacuums, moving my arms a lot and trying to catch her attention. We made fleeting eye contact, then she turned back to her tv's. My blood started to simmer.

Then some guy sauntered by and started looking at stereos. Immediately, Salesgirl approached him to offer her assistance. Supremely unimpressed, I made fleeting eye contact with her again and started to circle around the vacuum display, blatantly indicating that I was interested in the vacuums. Once the guy left, she started to walk up and down the aisles in my direction. Finally. I positioned myself in front of the vacuum I wanted, and when I looked up to talk to her, she was walking away from me!! She went back to her spot to watch tv!!

That was it. She lost me. I was perfectly willing to plunk down cash for a new vacuum, and she blew it. I stormed out of the store and headed to the Future Shop, where I bought my new vacuum. It's a Eureka. It even has a HEPA filter. And it's also yellow and black. I call it the Big Bumblebee.

After I assembled the Big Bumblebee, I spent a good amount of time vacuuming my living area. The Big Bumblebee is a little loud, so I made sure I stopped at an early hour, so I wouldn't disturb my Downstairs Neighbour too much. Apparently that was all for naught, as she is currently retaliating with her thumpety-thump music. At midnight.

Oh well. At least my carpet is clean.