brand new beauty

Today I used a brand new vacuum. This was quite exciting as I have never used or owned a new vacuum before. We began our newly married life (almost 13 years ago) with a 1981 Electrolux. It was Grandmother Darling's pride and joy, but the canister was proving too heavy for her and she and Grandpa were very happy to present this machine to us. We were happy to have it as we didn't have a vacuum and knew that there are some parts of marriage that really did need to suck (mainly the carpet that you'd walk on day in and day out).

Years later the Electrolux began to show her age. About this time we were presented with a much less heavy Oreck from my mom. She acquired this when I was about 12 or 13. (You can do the math on that one). It was awesome until the last few weeks.

So last Friday, I talked the kids up and filled them with excitement as we headed to the Vacuum Store after soccer. Jimmy was well prepared to face whatever came our way with his shin-guards, but he gratefully relinquished his ball to the confines of the car. He and Grace graciously checked out all the Vacuum Store had to offer. Grace then settled into her library book (because, you never know when you might need to read your library book in the exciting Vacuum Store) and Jimmy took it upon himself to notify a Vacuum Store employee their floor was very dirty (he had found their demo area and it truly troubled him, probably because shin-guards were no match to the mess the demo area provided).

The Vacuum Store regretfully informed me the repairs on my "elderly" vacuum would be over 100 bucks. I regretfully informed them I would not be seeking a $100 plus repair on my "elderly" vacuum. We did leave as friends, but I was sure not to impart my phone number.

After days of pondering, searching, researching, and hemming and hawing, the day arrived to purchase a brand-spankin'-new vacuum. As Grace had a previous engagement that particular afternoon, only Jimmy was there to accompany me on the purchase of a new vacuum. While cruising the aisle approaching our new-to-be acquisition, Jimmy pointed to each and every vacuum and said,

"Hey, Mama, check out this beauty!"

"Oh, look at that beauty over there!"

"I think this could be our new beauty, its purple!"

"Wow, what a beauty!"

It made buying a new vacuum even more awesome that it could have been.

This afternoon I assemble my new Beauty. It totally sucks.

I'm very happy.