Suck It Up: Bad Vacuum Experiences

I'm teaching my students about instructional manuals right now. The manual I was demonstrating with today was for a vacuum cleaner. It totally reminded me that I have some very blog-able vacuum cleaner moments.

When I was about 12, I sucked up a pair of clean underwear with my family's vacuum while cleaning my room. I was mortified/scared of getting in trouble, so I just put the vacuum away like there was nothing wrong. Later that day, my mom discovered the vacuum wasn't working. My handy dad took it out to the garage and discovered it wasn't working because my underwear were clogging it up. He walked my underweark pinched between his thumb and pointer finger through the yard to the house. Totally mortifying!

Apparently at the ripe old age of 25, I still didn't know how to use the vacuum.
About a year ago, Memphis had a horrible barfing incident in the middle of the night. He threw up a big pile of dog food. It's commonly agreed that Memphis is 70% Brad's dog and 30% mine. I firmly believed the throw-up came from Brad's 70%; it was his job to clean it up. He refused to get out of bed. So, I turned on the vacuum thinking it would make him get up. It didn't. So, I was forced to use the vacuum to suck up the huge pile of half-eaten dog food soaked in stomache acid. Good job for a shop-vac; not such a good job for our cheap-o Kenmore vacuum. Brad had to take apart the entire vacuum that night and carefully clean and sterlize each and every part. We don't have that vacuum any more.

Needless to say, my track record with vacuums isn't very good. I probably won't be investing hundreds of dollars in a Dyson anytime soon.