awhile ago, my old and faithful bissell vacuum pretty much bit the dust. it had been flagging in recent years, no doubt crushed by the strain of picking up all the hair - mine and stella's. i couldn't find bags for it, then the belt broke, and no one stocks those, either. but i actually found one belt in a secret compartment behind the bag cover panel, so i put that on, but then it kept slipping off. maybe it was a trick by satan; i don't know why else there would be a wrong belt hiding out inside the vacuum, but whatever. at any rate, the final straw was the last time i took it apart and slipped the belt back on and started the thing up - it smelled like burning. burning what, i don't know. but it was nasty. so i just stopped vacuuming and started the search for a replacement. but then my grandma told me this little beauty - the Dirt Devil Power Stick -
wasn't working for her and offered it to me, so i took it. turns out it's not a full replacement for my floor vac, but it has great attachments and it covered my basic vacuuming in the interim.
Now, after all the mudding and painting a few weeks ago, i took cathy's SUV and she had The Bounty Hunter. when i went back to urbana on memorial day, i decided to stop at the car wash and vacuum her car because there were some paint chips and dirt from the stuff i hauled. and then i went balls-out and cleaned the whole car, inside, outside, floormats, stow-away 3rd seat, all of it & that was fun because, really, the only thing nicer than a clean car is a clean car that you didn't clean yourself. so i thought that would be a nice treat. you may be thinking 'erin has really gone tangential on this one,' and it's true. but i'm bringing it back around. when tommy, dad and i went out to my car to go to the cookout, i was all happy thinking about cathy's surprise that she would find later and when i opened the back door of my car to help tommy, there was this little vac, and tommy was all 'we got you this!' to thank for helping, so yay! for surprises and awesome little vacs. it rocks! Cathy had it and her friend Jenny and I kept talking about how great it was a and that is why she gave each of us one. It's the Black & Decker Dust Buster 14.4V and it is seriously the best little hand vac I have ever used - I highly recommend it.
(also, having it makes me feel a little bit like Monica - "Now if they just made a tiny one to vacuum the big one!") (And also, also, Heidi came over one day and watched as I used it to suck up some broken glass behind the house, and then commented that I was actually vacuuming my driveway. Doh!)
So, after lots of deliberating and research and ruminating about what I was going to do about my lack of a full-fledged floor vacuum, I was walking thru Lowes one day looking to see if the rack cover was in stock (for the third time, because, annoyingly, they had it on display for about a month but none in stock, because something else was in that spot and so I finally took that thing and shoved it somewhere way behind all the other canvas things so the ordering person might see that the spot was empty and it before you laugh and tell me that the computers do all that now, keep in mind that it seems to have worked), and I came across the most beautiful vacuum i had ever seen, the Electrolux Intensity. Now, I had told myself at the beginning of the search that, just like house and car buying, I wasn't going to let myself fall in love with based on looks, but who am I kidding? We all know I'm a sucker for a pretty face. Plus, this one had the automatic height adjustment I so desperately wanted. And really, how could I turn it down? So. I was just loading it into the cart when Heidi called and I told her how excited I was to find the vacuum and I said "I know it's a vacuum cleaner, but it's kind of sexy". And I think she had no idea. But then she came over and saw for herself, and we decided to name it Justin, because he's bringing sexy back. And the suction is awesome. The downside is that there are no attachments, which also caused me some serious angst and almost made me pack it up to take it back, but then I remembered grandma's vac with all the great attachments and knew that my life was pretty close to perfect. And in a stroke of marketing genius, the brochure really put a spin on the lack of attachments with this gem: "The Intensity may not be your only vacuum, but it will probably be your favorite." Hee!
Here is Justin's close-up, from his good side, of course:
No, he's sexy
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