So today I conquered many things. I put together a storage cabinet with a lock and faulty instructions while my supposed partner in crime sat and watched, claiming that he is "useless" (which I frankly don't doubt to be true) at putting things together. After many hours and about 4-5 tears, I made Mail Merge my bitch and printed not only labels but fancy personalized letters on Progressive Future letter head. And I found out, to my surprise, that the proposal for my big, ginormous final masters project was required to be 7 pages, not the 2-3 that I thought it would be. I finished that proposal before I finished this bottle of fabulous Pinot Noir (I've become a real wino these days).
None of this, however, compares to the utter triumph I experienced last Friday. I took the day off from work, you see, to recover from the minor nervous breakdown I was experiencing on account of everyone's needs that I have to meet in addition to a final Human Resources and Volunteer Management paper due the night before. I thought this was a good opportunity to take care of some things around the house, such as the vaccum cleaner (sidebar...I have trouble spelling vaccum. I am going to experiment with some spellings here and see which one suits me.)
So my vacum (see how I spelled it differently that time?) had been exhibiting some very strange behavior. In fact, it seemed to be doing the opposite of what I wanted it to be doing. Usually, you want a vaccuum (oh shit, is that the correct spelling?) to suck; however, mine seemed to be actually dispelling dust onto the carpet rather than sucking it up.
Some background on my vaccum (or is that correct? neither one is showing up with the squiggly red "you spelled this wrong, asshole" line). I purchased it at the local Wal-Mart for $28, which I felt was a steal for a vacuum, and a pink one at that. It wasn't even one of those gay "We're pink because we support breast cancer" products. This vaccuum is just pink because it wants to be pink.
So anyway, my $28 pink Wal-Mart vacum was malfunctioning. I took off all the filters and washed them to no avail. I was really feeling like I was going to have to make a repeat visit to the Wal-Mart to replace my pink vaccumm. I mean, I'd only paid $28 for it. I wasn't going to take it in to have it repaired, and even if I wanted to, like there are any vaccum repairmen anymore. (Or repair women for that matter.) And it wasn't like I was about to take the time to...wait a minute! I can repair this vacum myself!
I wish I would have photograhically documented the stuff that came out of my vaccumm when I took it apart. It was pretty intense. There was a lot of confetti (circa New Years Eve, courtesy of Wes Morgan.) Dog hair was abundant. I had to stick a broom handle down the hose to get a big clog out of there. Disgusting.
But it got me thinking about consumerism. I mean, I took like 15 whole minutes to do that. I could have been doing many other thing with that time -- baking brownies, walking my dog, looking at my vagina in a mirror. But I spent 15 valuable minutes of my vacation cleaning out my vacum cleaner. Instead of throwing it away and buying a new one, I took the time to google the users manual for this vacum (thank god for the internets!) and taking this vacum apart. I feel superior to most people in that I don't think they would bother to do that.
So good for me, I fixed my own vacuum. Women's lib, all that. But what about the poor vacum cleaner repair man? Now that I'm all empowered to fix my own pink vacuum that I only paid $28 for, what happens to him? He fucks right off, I guess. Because $28 is a small price to pay to feel powerful and accomplished enough to have fixed my own vacuum.
I didn't throw out my vacuum, and I'm so happy. Because $28 feels like a million bucks to me now that I have invested in this bonding experience with my vacuum. We're tight.
BTW, I like the looks of two u's together, as in vacuum. So I've decided to spell vacuum that way. Yay.
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