I have a way with vacuums...

25 or so years ago my mom spent an arm and a leg and half a side of beef or something strange like that... on a vacuum. Not just any vacuum. A Kirby. I still remember the day that salesman came to the door. We all sat in the livingroom intrigued by this fabulous machine that was guaranteed to clean anything. He wow'd us with it's awesomeness, and went away with a sale in his pocket. I swear there was a cow involved somewhere in that purchase price, too.

When my parents went on their mission, my new husband and I were left in charge of living in and taking care of their home.... along with my brother and a distant cousin, but that's a whole nother story.

One of the first things I managed to do after mom left was break her prized vacuum. I don't know how I did it. It just ... quit working. I was beside myself. I called up my sister... "what do I do?" I just knew if mom was there, she'd surely flatten me like a pancake.

Luckily, I had a few months, and my husband and I managed to scrape together a few pennies to have the Kirby repaired. I think. Perhaps one of my siblings felt sorry for me and got it fixed. I don't know. All I do know is that 16 years later... that vacuum still works.

In those 16 years, I have singlehandedly managed to kill every vacuum I've ever laid hands on within a few months of taking ownership. It's like I'm vacuum challenged. Seriously. It didn't matter if I paid $50 or $500 for a vacuum. They never lasted long.

When we added on the office to our house four years ago, my dh went out and bought his very own vacuum for his office so he wouldn't have to carry my big heavy hoover out there, and he was determined to be anal about cleanliness in that space. He spent a whopping $35 on the cheapest vacuum he could find and used it a total of ... once?

Then the switch went out in my big beloved hoover. It was my most expensive vacuum to date and no way was I giving up on it just yet. I took it to the local vacuum repair place and he confirmed it was the switch, not a problem, easy, inexpensive fix, I'll order it right now, should be 2-3 days.

Two or three days turned into close to four weeks.

Do you know the kind of damage my kids do to carpet in 2-3 days, let alone four weeks?

Lucky for us, we had a perfectly good like new vacuum in the office just taking up space. It would work for now as much as I didn't want to bring it into the house. I had this feeling once it entered that door, it would never leave.

Two months after getting my beloved Hoover back, the switch went out again. Mr. Vacuum repair man told me this was common as it was a glitch in the Hoover system they had yet to perfect. Great. I hummed and hawed about what to do, take it back in and have another switch put in or say goodbye to my beloved vacuum? It wasn't like I didn't have a perfectly good one sitting right here anyway.

I said goodbye. Actually, I put it in the garage where it sat collecting dust until I gave it a proper goodbye to the local Deseret Industries. Mr. Vacuum repair man told me he enjoyed cruising D.I. for old vacuums to fix up. I should have saved him the time and just given it to him directly, but then I take the fun out of shopping at D.I., now wouldn't it?

Believe it or not... it's been three years now that I've been using this $35 Bissel vacuum. It has a small beater, and the only attachment is about 2 inches wide. I keep telling my husband it would sure be a lot easier to vacuum the furniture if I had an attachment that was more than 2" wide. *hint hint* He tells me just as soon as this vacuum dies, I can have a new one.

Now my husband, when he wanted a new big screen TV, I told him, right after the old one dies, then you can have a new one. It keeled over dead with a massive heart attack a week later! My vacuum... the one thing I've never owned one of for more than roughly 18 months... is going on three years... without so much as a broken belt even!

I've used it daily. I've abused it daily. Yet, it continues to live on.

It's doing this just to spite me.

I'm sure of it.