I Nearly Did The Wrong Thing With a Vacuum

Sometimes there isn’t anything that happened in the day to write about.

Because this happens roughly one night out of seven I try to have an idea banked for when I get stuck. Well, I’m stuck tonight, so here’s the one I had saved. It came to be just before Thanksgiving.

When I first got this condo I bought a nice vacuum. I think it was around $200 and it worked pretty well. Smash cut to eight years later and it just doesn’t suck up stuff like it used to. It’s bagless but I’ve cleaned every inch of it and nothing seems increase it’s cleaning ability. Sadly I realized it was time to move on. I was sad because I didn’t want to spend another $200 on something that just sits in my closet and is never used.

This is how pathetic I am. Realizing I may never be a good housekeeper, I am hiring a housecleaner. I’ve done this sporadically in the past but always with the, “One day I shall do this for myself!” I am thirty-six. That day is not coming. So, before I start building in a cleaning lady to the budget I need to get her (it’s always a her) a new vacuum.

Sears was having this big sale and I happen to live a mile from one. I can’t imagine there are too many Sears in the city of Chicago, but I’m not going to  overthink  it. I ordered a Hoover online and drove to the back of the loading dock where I interrupted a Sears pizza party. That inspired me to get my own pizza so I did just that.

By the time I got home I had the dog to carry up as well as the pizza and my briefcase. The vacuum stayed in my car until the day before my Thanksgiving trip home. It is now sitting in my little dining nook unopened.

Got a little off track there – this is about the old vacuum.

To get rid of the existing vacuum I wanted to test an idea I’ve had for years. Craigslist has a free section and I thought I would put my vacuum on there. I actually did this once, years back. I put a bunch of crap on Craigslist free section (such as 74 VHS movies – not tellin’ which titles) and couldn’t believe how many emails and calls I received about items. I finally got annoyed and changed each ad to read, “First come – first serve. No questions allowed!” This pissed plenty of Craigslist freeloaders off. They flagged and deleted my posts. The free CL community is no-nonsense.

I was ready to try again.

The idea was to put it on Craigslist with this ad.

$200 Bissell vacuum cleaner. Eight years old. Not quite as much suction as when I got it, but in great condition. No blemishes. Has a cool head light if you want to do stuff in the dark. This lonely vacuum will be sitting on the street corner of Broadway and Lawrence next to The Onion newspaper dispenser. First come, first serve. GODSPEED.

Then I would hide around the corner with my camera to document the goodness. How quickly would someone show? Who would show? How many people? Who would stop and be disappointed they weren’t there sooner? Would my screen name Johnny Feltersnatch  be yelled with a choice expletive as someone shook their fist to the heavens?

Oh, I forgot that I would be taping a paper to the ground under the vacuum that said: “Vacuum was picked up by someone with more initiative than you.”

And while the comedy part of me loved everything about this I didn’t end up doing it. I was all set to last Saturday but something felt wrong. I didn’t want to screw a bunch of people who would drive over and be disappointed.

I was telling my mom this idea and she just shrugged and said, “Give it to Goodwill.” This had never occurred to me.

I need you to realize something – I donate bags of shit every year to Goodwill. I live just down the street from one. It’s a nice tax deduction because they give you the blank receipts and you can say you gave away fourteen suits but you and I both know you work at Arby’s.

My mind is so wrapped up in this blog that I almost failed to do something that any decent human being would have done. I still love the idea of super-gluing a silver dollar in the middle of a busy sidewalk so maybe I’ll do that instead.