Vacuuming string

MY CAVE, MY VIEW
by Gary Torres

I just spent five minutes trying to vacuum up a piece of string off the floor.  Immediately, I can hear my readers saying “Whoa CaveGuy.  You vacuuming is as likely as a Democrat winning the popular vote in Utah.” 

But this is a true story, and I was vacuuming.  It took me five minutes to figure out how to turn the vacuum cleaner on as the “on button” is in a tricky spot; but once Daniel showed me where it was I had no problem… until I ran into a rogue string on the carpet.

I am not sure why I wouldn’t just stop and pick the string up; but if the dang vacuum is supposed to pick it up, then by golly it was going to do it or I would be a Liberal and give up Pepsi. 

I actually picked up the string, inspecting it for some kind of super power glue or sticky stuff that wouldn’t allow my vacuum to suck it up; but I couldn’t see anything. 

So I threw it back down on the floor and commenced mowing over it again and again and again until the carpet had a nice little path burned in it. 

But the string lay there on the ground mocking me. It was almost bent into a Joker-like smile, taunting me, “Why so serious?”

I’ll tell you why so serious. I spent money for a vacuum that is supposed to suck up string like this and my stubbornness is only second to my over confidence that I can do anything. 

So we are at an impasse; me and a piece of string dueling it out.  Using all of our time, talents, and ingenuity to see which of us can out smart their opponent.  Who will be the victor? 

I will not be out smarted by a piece of string!  But this is no ordinary string, of that I am certain.

Not deterred; I decided that the vacuum must not be working!  Duh!  So I tore the vacuum apart and went and got my big shop vacuum and cleaned the household vacuum and then tried it again. 

No luck.  The string sits there clinging to the floor like lichen to a rock; holding on for all it is worth.  Meanwhile my brain kicks in (I think, it may have been a gas bubble, as I ate cauliflower earlier). I am an engineer, so I decide that the vacuum cleaner is not working right.  Duh!  So I commence to tear the sucker apart. 

It comes apart rather easily; it did not go back together so well.  I don’t know exactly what these extra parts are for but I throw them in the garbage.  I have other things on my mind.

I push the button to start the vacuum and the light comes on, but the vacuum doesn’t suck.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a sucky vacuum but it won’t suck. 

I do what I always do when something electrical doesn’t work I wiggle the cord.  Wiggle.  Wiggle.   Wiggle.  It starts sucking but the light goes off; no matter, I know exactly where the string is. It is on the floor and has now taken the shape of a naughty word.  Its last great act of defiance, I suppose. 

I continue to mow it over and over and over and each time it rearranges itself into a new word.  The last word is “loser”.

 I can’t take it any more and I go get my shop-vac.  It could suck the freckle off of Fergie (Sarah, Duchess of York); which sounds like a great horror movie premise. 

I turn it on and the lights in tyhe neighborhood dim for a second as the turbine gets up to speed.  I hold it just above the string so I can watch as the string is pulled from the carpet screaming and kicking holding to the carpet with its last ounce of strength. 

Finally, the life is sucked out of it and it peals off and disappears into the black hose.  No one messes with the CaveGuy; not even a piece of string. 

I am on my way to the store to buy a new vacuum cleaner when another brilliant thought sparks across my cerebral cortex in a flash of genius, “Hey I’ll bet the missus would really like a vacuum for a Christmas present!”