It Sucks

When we learned that a sizable chunk of money was coming our way in the form of a tax return, we decided to spend a portion of it on a new vacuum cleaner.

Our old vacuum (which was given to us for free when we got married) recently decided to give up the ghost.  This came at an inopportune time: Jack has recently decided that it is his dearest wish to roll from our back door to our front, picking up and attempting to eat whatever he encounters along the way.

Research was done, advice was solicited, prices were compared.  We ended up purchasing a Shark Navigator from the Costco.

An immediate and heavenly difference was noted in our home as soon as our dear new vacuum produced its first suck.  Jack's rolling aspirations were suddenly more acceptable.

I feel it necessary to point out that this is one of those fancy-schmancy vacuums with a canister for the sucked muck, instead of a bag.

See?

Fast forward to yesterday.

My newly created chore charts indicate that on Mondays I am to dust and vacuum the master bedroom.  Before vacuuming, I realized that the vacuum canister needed to be emptied.  Lewis made it look so easy to remove the canister when he first learned the ins and outs of our new Shark, so I felt confident I could figure out how to do it without looking it up in the manual.  I was wrong.  I fiddled around with a few buttons for a couple of minutes, but nothing happened, so I decided to leave it for when Lewis got home.

Lewis, being the dear that he is, was perfectly willing to show me how to empty the canister.  I was very grateful for his assistance, even if he did ridicule me the whole way up to the bedroom and was somewhat condescending when he pointed out the maybe a little bit obvious release button.  He pushed it, pulled the canister from where it sits

and dumped all the grossness out onto the floor and my foot.

Apparently when I was fiddling with it to figure out how to remove the canister I had flipped the buckle that keeps it closed at the bottom.

Whoops.

Luckily our Shop-Vac came to the rescue.  Lewis' dad found it on sale at Lowe's a year or so back.  The deal was too good to pass up apparently, but since he already had one, he gave it to us.  Thank goodness.  It cleaned all the disgustingness from the floor and my foot right up, and even sucked all the residual grime from off of the Shark as well.

Crisis averted.