Make that $481

Remember the Rice Cooker? Wait. There’s more.

My vacuum also broke. The “dream” vacuum my mom insisted on buying me three years ago when she was here last and saw the ridiculous effort I was making with my fourth vacuum in 8 months, and how futile the effort was. She couldn’t take it and in her motherly way insisted I get a “real” vacuum.

Oh, it was so worth it. I love this vacuum. In fact, I think I even “tweeted” about it on Twitter when I first signed up for that mysterious social networking site. It (get this!) actually sucked up dirt! Imagine! And it didn’t have any stupid features like being “bagless” which basically means (to me) that I get to see what my vacuum picked up when I have to dump that dirt a second time, letting it poof into the air and turn into dust in my already extremely dusty desert world. Yay for bagged vacuums. Yay for not having to see any stray dead bugs or whatever else I want to suck up with a machine at more than arm’s length and never see or think of again.

But my mom called on Sunday night and said she and my dad are coming to visit. I’m really excited to see them! My parents are wonderful. My mom really values a clean house, which is also wonderful, and it gives me an incentive to kick myself into gear. (Well, sorta. I’m not kicking quite yet like I ought to.)

And Monday morning, I realized that the dream vacuum was broken. It barely picked up a stray leaf or grain of dried up rice under the table.

Seriously? Right now? No. Not even thinkable.

But it was. So I had my 15 year old take it apart. He’s always been good at that. But he couldn’t quite figure what was wrong with it. So this morning, I tried again to take it apart. Thinking that maybe it was clogged or something, I got one of those “drain zipper” flexible tools you use to unclog drains. This would’ve been great if it hadn’t instantly broken off inside the vacuum tube. Nice.

This, I felt, constituted an emergency. I had to bring in the big guns. “Hon, can you um, just help me with this for a few minutes, like maybe even before you go to work?” My husband, bless him!, undid all the pertinent screws, and we dejunked all the nether parts of the vacuum. No one specific clog came out, but we unclogged it all over, and then he put it all back together. I have no idea if he was late for work or not. I’m so self-centered I didn’t even care because I was so busy rejoicing that … the vac was back! It worked so well I was just vacuuming with glee.

Glee? Yes, seriously. Generally, I’d say something about that like, “That’s just not right.” But in this case, man, it was fantastic. Without this miracle of the disassembly and reassembly, I’d have had to haul myself over to WalMart and buy a $300 replacement vacuum, and I’d have to do it today. Pressure was on.

But no! No need! The Hoover Platinum has had a miraculous regeneration. The Zojirushi pulled itself off the ropes and both have come back up swinging, ready to fight the good fight at Chez Griffith another day.

It’s an appliance miracle! A St. Paddy’s Day appliance miracle! I think I’ll kiss the vacuum, it’s Irish. Or else just my super great vacuum-fixing husband. May he find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! (Which would be perfect because I’d end up spending it all anyway because that’s the way things work around here.)