"Victor’s Dead"
But first of all, can you keep a secret? I think I accidentally killed Victor. Don’t worry though, it was an accident. Besides that he was just our vacuum cleaner, not a person so it’s not as big a deal as it sounds. I’ll tell you the story too, but you have to swear to never share it with my husband because I am taking this one to the grave. Seriously...I really mean it.... So if you think you can keep this a secret read on, otherwise click on another page right now and don’t read another, single word. Not one.
In case you are cheating, I am not going to start the story just yet I am going to share a joke with you from one of my kid’s popsicles the other day.
Q: What gets wetter the more it dries?
Punch line: A towel! Those popsicle manufactures are just so clever aren't they?!
Now if you are
serious about keeping my secret safe and you have sworn on a bible, or Koran,
or whatever other religious book you believe in, then you may read on. If not, get out of here once and for all.
Scram. Beat it.
Okay now that I have weeded out all of the unworthy readers,
let’s get started. This story spans a
few days and when I analyze it on a deeper, more personal, level, I realize
that my husband is actually to blame for Victor’s untimely death, not me. Had he merely done what I asked of him right the first time, Victor would still be alive and well today. Such accusations must be backed by facts and
proof. So here are the facts. If you follow my blog, then you will recall
that I cleaned the van for my husband to borrow it the other day to attend a
work training conference. I did this for my husband because I am a nice wife
and I do wonderful things like this for my husband all the time. On an unrelated note, but offered up as
further proof that I am kind to my husband, I also made him a crockpot full of potato
soup to take to a coworker's retirement potluck last Friday!
I know. How nice am I? What I
didn’t share at the time, however, was a piece of information that I thought
was irrelevant, but that turns out is critical to the plot of Victor’s slaying. I better elaborate.
Victor and Mom all dressed up in their Tiger Gear for their trip to the
Detroit Tiger's Game. One of our happiest times together!
You see, when I agreed to clean the van I asked my husband
to put the Shop Vac back together because I had accidentally knocked it over the
last time I used it and try as I may, I couldn’t figure out how to reassemble
the damn thing. Maybe Survivor should use the assembling of a Shop Vac for one of their challenges next season. That's how hard it is (for me anyways). Putting things back together is not
exactly a strong suit of mine. Being
nice, yes. Reassembling things, not so
much. Well, my husband told me he fixed it. However,
when I went to use the Shop Vac, there was no sucking power. None,
whatsoever. Clearly he “fixed” it wrong which is why Victor died.
Being the creative woman that I am (and possibly stubborn) when faced with this vacuuming dilemma, I decided to use Victor’s hose thingy to clean the van instead of waiting for the industrial strength Shop Vac to be properly put back together when my husband returned from work. I had determined I would finish this project independently before Jeff got home and I was not about to let Jeff’s inability to properly assemble the Shop Vac stand in the way of my plan. Sidenote: we generally reserve the Shop Vac for all truly nasty jobs such as cleaning the van, garage, basement and other creepy places in order to protect Victor. Right or wrong, we have always sheltered Victor in this way. We have tried diligently for years to keep him safe from such evils as are found in this terribly broken world (namely our van and other creepy places). Victor had been a member of our family longer than I, so we were really very attached to him. I was so proud too and pleasantly surprised that Victor was working just fine as a substitute van cleaner. He really rose to the challenge...until I accidentally sucked up a Huntington Bank pen (which was my favorite pen by they way).
I was initially pissed because I just witnessed my favorite pen being sucked into a one-way street to darkness. Then the anger turned quickly to horror as I realized that the pen actually went all the way into Victor’s internal makeup. I by no means claim to be a vacuum expert, but I was pretty sure that a pen could cause serious problems to the proper functioning of a sheltered, household, vacuum cleaner, like Victor. I turned him off immediately and tried shaking his hose really hard in hopes of dislodging the pen. It didn’t work so I then turned Victor upside down and beat on the bottom of him as hard as I could, but he would not give up the pen. I think there may be a market for vacuum cleaner CPR classes for any young entrepreneurs out there too because I know I wished I had taken such a course at that very moment. I had an incident with my blender awhile back too so maybe it could be applicable to all small appliances. The details would need to be worked out, but there’s definite potential there. Anyhow, I continued to beat on him for a few more minutes and failing miserably I decided to turn him upright. Then I hit the power button to see how he worked, or I guess to be more accurate, if he worked. To my delight, Victor seemed okay.
Since he seemed to be working acceptably, I decided that maybe I had just imagined sucking the pen up and it was actually somewhere inside the van or in the eternally messy garage. That was probably what happened. So despite that I didn't locate the pen during a thorough searching of the area, I still convinced myself that it never happened. The more time passed, the more certain I became that the entire pen incident was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Yes,Victor’s consumption of my favorite pen was nothing more than a horribly, vivid hallucination. Besides that, I was almost done so I finished the van project and packed Victor back safely in his spot in the closet. My final thought on the matter was, “Geeze, I dodged a bullet with that one”.
Mom and Victor on his first day of Kindergarten waiting for the bus!
Being the creative woman that I am (and possibly stubborn) when faced with this vacuuming dilemma, I decided to use Victor’s hose thingy to clean the van instead of waiting for the industrial strength Shop Vac to be properly put back together when my husband returned from work. I had determined I would finish this project independently before Jeff got home and I was not about to let Jeff’s inability to properly assemble the Shop Vac stand in the way of my plan. Sidenote: we generally reserve the Shop Vac for all truly nasty jobs such as cleaning the van, garage, basement and other creepy places in order to protect Victor. Right or wrong, we have always sheltered Victor in this way. We have tried diligently for years to keep him safe from such evils as are found in this terribly broken world (namely our van and other creepy places). Victor had been a member of our family longer than I, so we were really very attached to him. I was so proud too and pleasantly surprised that Victor was working just fine as a substitute van cleaner. He really rose to the challenge...until I accidentally sucked up a Huntington Bank pen (which was my favorite pen by they way).
I was initially pissed because I just witnessed my favorite pen being sucked into a one-way street to darkness. Then the anger turned quickly to horror as I realized that the pen actually went all the way into Victor’s internal makeup. I by no means claim to be a vacuum expert, but I was pretty sure that a pen could cause serious problems to the proper functioning of a sheltered, household, vacuum cleaner, like Victor. I turned him off immediately and tried shaking his hose really hard in hopes of dislodging the pen. It didn’t work so I then turned Victor upside down and beat on the bottom of him as hard as I could, but he would not give up the pen. I think there may be a market for vacuum cleaner CPR classes for any young entrepreneurs out there too because I know I wished I had taken such a course at that very moment. I had an incident with my blender awhile back too so maybe it could be applicable to all small appliances. The details would need to be worked out, but there’s definite potential there. Anyhow, I continued to beat on him for a few more minutes and failing miserably I decided to turn him upright. Then I hit the power button to see how he worked, or I guess to be more accurate, if he worked. To my delight, Victor seemed okay.
Victor standing proudly and full of delight as he is asked to fill in as a van cleaner.
He eagerly resonds, "yes, I can do it mom!"
Since he seemed to be working acceptably, I decided that maybe I had just imagined sucking the pen up and it was actually somewhere inside the van or in the eternally messy garage. That was probably what happened. So despite that I didn't locate the pen during a thorough searching of the area, I still convinced myself that it never happened. The more time passed, the more certain I became that the entire pen incident was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Yes,Victor’s consumption of my favorite pen was nothing more than a horribly, vivid hallucination. Besides that, I was almost done so I finished the van project and packed Victor back safely in his spot in the closet. My final thought on the matter was, “Geeze, I dodged a bullet with that one”.
Fast forward a couple days to when I was cleaning the basement and
you will find me pondering briefly what was causing Victor to smoke as I tried
to clean the bird cage in the basement. With a perplexed look on my face, I
suddenly remembered the horrible incident with my former favorite pen and I realized
that it was probably related to the smoke pouring out of Victor’s undercarriage
at that very moment. I cut the power to
Victor immediately, but then found myself in a bit of a predicament because I
hadn’t mentioned the pen ingestion incident to Jeff. I was deliberating on
what to do about the situation, when Jeff walked into the room to investigate
the smell Victor was making. It smelled kind of like Coopersville when the dump
is working overtime, or like a burning piece of rubber or plastic. You get the idea; it reeked, really, really
bad.
Without thinking, I immediately went into self preservation mode. Yes, I lied. I totally played stupid, batted my eyelashes and told Jeff I had no idea why the vacuum smelled like a huge pile of burning tires. Maybe I am not such a great wife afterall. He looked at the vacuum briefly to see if he could determine the cause of the foul odor. Of course, as with all vacuum cleaners, Victor had at least a pound or two of hair wrapped tightly around the part that spins. Jeff declared that the hair was probably the cause of the foul odor and that it was okay for me to finish vacuuming, but I should clean the spinning part of the vacuum once I was done. Jeff doesn’t believe in calling the appliances by their names. He says it’s silly so that is why I referred to victor as an inanimate object in the last sentence.
I finished quickly and then I cleaned the spinning part. One noteworthy item to share and I apologize in advance because it is slightly gross, or maybe totally disgusting, I am not sure. But of all that hair stuck in there, most of it was mine because I have a lot of long hair, but more importantly none of it was gray! NONE! Silver linings people, silver linings. So I may have to ask for a new vacuum for my birthday… better yet for Valentine’s Day since Victor was removed from life support earlier this morning. I am taking his passing better than I thought I would, but it's not going to be easy to find another vacuum cleaner I can love like him. But the best news from all of this is that I don’t have gray hair…yet. I realize it’s just a matter of time though these kids and appliances are sure to give me gray hair eventually!
Without thinking, I immediately went into self preservation mode. Yes, I lied. I totally played stupid, batted my eyelashes and told Jeff I had no idea why the vacuum smelled like a huge pile of burning tires. Maybe I am not such a great wife afterall. He looked at the vacuum briefly to see if he could determine the cause of the foul odor. Of course, as with all vacuum cleaners, Victor had at least a pound or two of hair wrapped tightly around the part that spins. Jeff declared that the hair was probably the cause of the foul odor and that it was okay for me to finish vacuuming, but I should clean the spinning part of the vacuum once I was done. Jeff doesn’t believe in calling the appliances by their names. He says it’s silly so that is why I referred to victor as an inanimate object in the last sentence.
I finished quickly and then I cleaned the spinning part. One noteworthy item to share and I apologize in advance because it is slightly gross, or maybe totally disgusting, I am not sure. But of all that hair stuck in there, most of it was mine because I have a lot of long hair, but more importantly none of it was gray! NONE! Silver linings people, silver linings. So I may have to ask for a new vacuum for my birthday… better yet for Valentine’s Day since Victor was removed from life support earlier this morning. I am taking his passing better than I thought I would, but it's not going to be easy to find another vacuum cleaner I can love like him. But the best news from all of this is that I don’t have gray hair…yet. I realize it’s just a matter of time though these kids and appliances are sure to give me gray hair eventually!
Vern out
No comments:
Post a Comment