I have a cousin who won the lottery a few years ago. While it wasn’t hundreds of millions of dollars, it was enough to help him buy a house after taxes and everything. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. You know, we always hear about things like that (things that some people like to call miracles) happening to other people and wonder, “Why couldn’t that be me?”
Well, we had our own little miracle here at home just the other day. In fact it was marvelously appropriate that it happened on Saturday. Allow me to set the scene:
It is Saturday afternoon, the day before Easter. The weather outside is stunning. “This is the perfect day to take the Beans out for a walk in their new stroller,” thinks the story’s heroine, Pie (that’s me). She looks around her, eyes casting about the living room, family room, dining room, her face becoming more deeply lined with dismay the longer she looks.
“This place is a mess! And we have the whole family coming over for dinner tomorrow! I simply must get this place whipped into shape.” And with that, our heroine is off. She calls Mimzi and beckons her over to play with the Beans so Pie can roll up her sleeves and get down to business. By the time Mimzi arrives, the Beans are almost asleep and Pie has all the furniture rearranged to run the vacuum unfettered over the carpeting in the bedrooms, living room and family room.
The house hums with the vibration of the ancient vacuum. Actually, sometimes it’s more like a clankety-clankety-clankety-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeeeze-clank-bbbbbbvvvvvrrrrrrr and then back to the hum, but that’s okay because the job’s getting done…
You can almost see it, can’t you? The picture of efficiency- the usually meek, docile, gentle mother creature transformed into a driven, single-minded, formidable cleaning monster, her eyes like laser beams, zeroing in on dust and dog hair and zapping it all into oblivion with her trusty vacuum cleaner.
Ah yes, the vacuum cleaner. The sidearm / companion to every SAHM heroine. Mine is Eureka Betsy. She and I go way back to the very beginning of our dirt –fighting days and I love hate love hate love have a somewhat complicated relationship with her. Vacuums age more rapidly than humans. Kind of how every year of a dog’s life is supposedly roughly equivalent to seven years of our lives. If I want to apply that rule here, then Eureka Betsy is about 105. And she’s not looking too good. Over the past few years, she’s become a rather high-maintenance girl and she’s had to undergo a couple of life-prolonging procedures (that have been a complete pain in the behind) so we know her days are numbered. Sometimes she blows more than she sucks, as Hubby likes to point out, however, cheapskate that I am, I’ll keep Eureka Betsy alive and sucking till there’s not a breath left in her.
And that day arrived on Saturday. There I was, halfway through the crucial vacuuming process when Eureka Betsy had another one of her episodes. I paused midstride, waiting for the clankety-clankety-clankety to give way to the wheezing sound when something snapped inside poor old Eureka Betsy. Cautiously, hopefully, but with more than an ounce of dread, I gingerly pushed her over the carpet in a long, sweeping pass and absent were the telltale streaks of cleanliness. Oh, no. Not today! Please, PLEASE not right now!!!
I tried rebooting her because that’s what Hubby always requires I do BEFORE calling him in to troubleshoot. Unplug. Replug. Switch engaged. No dice. I tried just plain booting her with my sneaker-encased-madwoman foot. Still, nothing. I ran out to Hubby’s office.
“Hi,” Smile. It makes people more likely to help you, I told myself.
“Hello,” He’s distracted and doesn’t notice my smile. I cut to the chase.
“Honey, the vacuum’s not working,” and stop right there. That’s all he needs to know. No need to pepper him with insignificant details. He hates those.
“Um, I’m right in the middle of uploading the print driver blahblahblah,” Stop listening because that means no, he won’t look at it now and I’m totally screwed.
“Do you want me to call around and find a vacuum repair place?” I’m hopeful to get Eureka Betsy back up on her casters today so I can heartlessly squeeze another fifteen minutes of service out of her. That’s all I need. Fifteen minutes.
“No…” is the response. “I’ll look at it later.” Shit. Later means October. Shit!
I leave. Now not only is the house dirty, I’m also pissed off.
In a perilous bind with no visible solutions to this overwhelming problem presenting themselves, our heroine’s mind races. What shall she do? She charges back into the house, evidence of her predicament everywhere: furniture all askew, dog hair on the sofa cushions, dust in the cracks of the coffee table. She knows that without Eureka Betsy, there’s no hope for a clean holiday.
Suddenly, a light blinks on in our heroine’s eyes. Her face is alight in newfound hope. She picks up the phone and begins dialing, a hopeful smile spreading across her face…
I called Howard. He was in the family room in under fifteen minutes and diagnosing Eureka Betsy with clogged arteries or something, which had resulted in her heart attack, but he could revive her. I gave him twenty bucks and he took a trip to Wal-Mart. I awaited his return in an anxious vigil over Eureka Betsy’s motionless corpse, gazing wistfully at her power cord, patched with electrical tape in more than a couple of places, snaking out behind her like a stilled tail. I thought of all the places we’d cleaned together, her and I, and all the places I still hoped we’d clean together in the days to come. I willed her to hold on, pouring all my hope and longing into her to recover swiftly and fulfill her purpose on this earth once again.
Howard returned. I left the room. I couldn’t bear to watch as he laid open her innards and went at her guts with his precision surgical tools. The tension in the air was palpable. Would Eureka Betsy survive to battle dirt for another day? Would Howard be able to yet again breathe life into this ancient, dying behemoth?
All of our questions and prayers were answered a moment later when we heard it: Clankety-clankety-clankety-wheeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzze-hummmmmmmmm.
It had happened! Our very own Easter resurrection. Howard and I took Eureka Betsy out for a test-sucking of Hubby’s office rug. It was truly a thing of beauty- Eureka Betsy sucking away at all the dirt and dust that had accumulated over the past weeks since Hubby set up shop. And I must say that the sight of Hubby pushing the vacuum gave me more than a little pleasure.
So, that’s the story of our Easter miracle. Never again can I look enviously at another person’s good fortune and lament my lack thereof. I have Eureka Betsy, my house was sparkling clean for the holiday, and I got to see my husband vacuum. Hallelujah! Oh, and the Beans were super-cute for their first Hippity Hoppity Happy Easter and we were able to take pics on the (CLEAN) floor!
Well, we had our own little miracle here at home just the other day. In fact it was marvelously appropriate that it happened on Saturday. Allow me to set the scene:
It is Saturday afternoon, the day before Easter. The weather outside is stunning. “This is the perfect day to take the Beans out for a walk in their new stroller,” thinks the story’s heroine, Pie (that’s me). She looks around her, eyes casting about the living room, family room, dining room, her face becoming more deeply lined with dismay the longer she looks.
“This place is a mess! And we have the whole family coming over for dinner tomorrow! I simply must get this place whipped into shape.” And with that, our heroine is off. She calls Mimzi and beckons her over to play with the Beans so Pie can roll up her sleeves and get down to business. By the time Mimzi arrives, the Beans are almost asleep and Pie has all the furniture rearranged to run the vacuum unfettered over the carpeting in the bedrooms, living room and family room.
The house hums with the vibration of the ancient vacuum. Actually, sometimes it’s more like a clankety-clankety-clankety-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeze-wheeeeze-clank-bbbbbbvvvvvrrrrrrr and then back to the hum, but that’s okay because the job’s getting done…
You can almost see it, can’t you? The picture of efficiency- the usually meek, docile, gentle mother creature transformed into a driven, single-minded, formidable cleaning monster, her eyes like laser beams, zeroing in on dust and dog hair and zapping it all into oblivion with her trusty vacuum cleaner.
Ah yes, the vacuum cleaner. The sidearm / companion to every SAHM heroine. Mine is Eureka Betsy. She and I go way back to the very beginning of our dirt –fighting days and I love hate love hate love have a somewhat complicated relationship with her. Vacuums age more rapidly than humans. Kind of how every year of a dog’s life is supposedly roughly equivalent to seven years of our lives. If I want to apply that rule here, then Eureka Betsy is about 105. And she’s not looking too good. Over the past few years, she’s become a rather high-maintenance girl and she’s had to undergo a couple of life-prolonging procedures (that have been a complete pain in the behind) so we know her days are numbered. Sometimes she blows more than she sucks, as Hubby likes to point out, however, cheapskate that I am, I’ll keep Eureka Betsy alive and sucking till there’s not a breath left in her.
And that day arrived on Saturday. There I was, halfway through the crucial vacuuming process when Eureka Betsy had another one of her episodes. I paused midstride, waiting for the clankety-clankety-clankety to give way to the wheezing sound when something snapped inside poor old Eureka Betsy. Cautiously, hopefully, but with more than an ounce of dread, I gingerly pushed her over the carpet in a long, sweeping pass and absent were the telltale streaks of cleanliness. Oh, no. Not today! Please, PLEASE not right now!!!
I tried rebooting her because that’s what Hubby always requires I do BEFORE calling him in to troubleshoot. Unplug. Replug. Switch engaged. No dice. I tried just plain booting her with my sneaker-encased-madwoman foot. Still, nothing. I ran out to Hubby’s office.
“Hi,” Smile. It makes people more likely to help you, I told myself.
“Hello,” He’s distracted and doesn’t notice my smile. I cut to the chase.
“Honey, the vacuum’s not working,” and stop right there. That’s all he needs to know. No need to pepper him with insignificant details. He hates those.
“Um, I’m right in the middle of uploading the print driver blahblahblah,” Stop listening because that means no, he won’t look at it now and I’m totally screwed.
“Do you want me to call around and find a vacuum repair place?” I’m hopeful to get Eureka Betsy back up on her casters today so I can heartlessly squeeze another fifteen minutes of service out of her. That’s all I need. Fifteen minutes.
“No…” is the response. “I’ll look at it later.” Shit. Later means October. Shit!
I leave. Now not only is the house dirty, I’m also pissed off.
In a perilous bind with no visible solutions to this overwhelming problem presenting themselves, our heroine’s mind races. What shall she do? She charges back into the house, evidence of her predicament everywhere: furniture all askew, dog hair on the sofa cushions, dust in the cracks of the coffee table. She knows that without Eureka Betsy, there’s no hope for a clean holiday.
Suddenly, a light blinks on in our heroine’s eyes. Her face is alight in newfound hope. She picks up the phone and begins dialing, a hopeful smile spreading across her face…
I called Howard. He was in the family room in under fifteen minutes and diagnosing Eureka Betsy with clogged arteries or something, which had resulted in her heart attack, but he could revive her. I gave him twenty bucks and he took a trip to Wal-Mart. I awaited his return in an anxious vigil over Eureka Betsy’s motionless corpse, gazing wistfully at her power cord, patched with electrical tape in more than a couple of places, snaking out behind her like a stilled tail. I thought of all the places we’d cleaned together, her and I, and all the places I still hoped we’d clean together in the days to come. I willed her to hold on, pouring all my hope and longing into her to recover swiftly and fulfill her purpose on this earth once again.
Howard returned. I left the room. I couldn’t bear to watch as he laid open her innards and went at her guts with his precision surgical tools. The tension in the air was palpable. Would Eureka Betsy survive to battle dirt for another day? Would Howard be able to yet again breathe life into this ancient, dying behemoth?
All of our questions and prayers were answered a moment later when we heard it: Clankety-clankety-clankety-wheeeeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzze-hummmmmmmmm.
It had happened! Our very own Easter resurrection. Howard and I took Eureka Betsy out for a test-sucking of Hubby’s office rug. It was truly a thing of beauty- Eureka Betsy sucking away at all the dirt and dust that had accumulated over the past weeks since Hubby set up shop. And I must say that the sight of Hubby pushing the vacuum gave me more than a little pleasure.
So, that’s the story of our Easter miracle. Never again can I look enviously at another person’s good fortune and lament my lack thereof. I have Eureka Betsy, my house was sparkling clean for the holiday, and I got to see my husband vacuum. Hallelujah! Oh, and the Beans were super-cute for their first Hippity Hoppity Happy Easter and we were able to take pics on the (CLEAN) floor!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment