Just thinking: New cordless vacuum is a sweeping sensation
I must talk about my vacuum cleaner.
Usually, vacuuming is something I do, not something I talk about, similar to scouring sinks and emptying the lint trap in the clothes dryer. Though since I mentioned it, I love emptying the lint trap. The way the soft layer of fluff peels off so cleanly is strangely satisfying. When my husband gets to the lint before I do, I’m not exactly resentful, but I have to remind myself there will be other days, other neat lint blankets to remove.
Anyway, the vacuum cleaner. Our old downstairs vacuum cleaner was dying. (Yes, we have two, with 16 steep steps between them.) The plastic end of the roller bar assembly (the diagram calls it the motorhead, but that sounds like somebody who loves rebuilding engines) was always working itself loose and falling off, and the motor itself constantly was cutting out. Even I could hear it, and I’m a person who never hears anything like that.
“Can’t you hear that clicking sound?” my husband will ask, leaning into the car’s dashboard or the lawn mower or the dishwasher, but I can’t. I never can, which is why no one has ever called me a motorhead.
A week or so ago, that same husband put the ailing vacuum cleaner in his truck and took it to the dealer for a diagnosis. When he returned, he had a brand-new machine, a cordless vacuum that charges when I’m not using it to snick up dog fur and dog toy shards and dog bed fluff and dog food bits. This new sweeper is so lightweight, it’s like sweeping with a plastic Q-tip, but the magical part is the complete absence of a cord.
In the olden days of last week, vacuuming was limited by our outlets. I could plug the sweeper into a living room outlet and get most of that room, all of the kitchen and certain parts of the dining room. Some days, if I was feeling ambitious or if company was coming, I’d unplug and plug in the sweeper several times to reach every sweepable cranny. Most days, though, I had a mildly pugnacious attitude about the whole thing.
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“If you think I’m bringing this sweeper over there, you have another think coming,” I’d say to the far corners of the living room. As for the room we call the office, it may as well be attached to another house for all the attention I give it. Oh, I dust in there occasionally, but ever since I realized I could be just as productive in my comfy chair as I could sitting bolt upright at my desk, I’ve let the office fend for itself. It’s like a guinea pig turned loose in the yard: Not completely feral, but a little wild around the edges.
Now, though, I can go anywhere – into the office to sweep under the massive secretary my grandmother left to me, or rather, left to our 10-foot ceilings, up the stairs, into every corner and even unto the bathrooms. The roller bar swivels like an Olympic ice dancer, and the dog prances around, ready to play or kill, either one.
Meanwhile, upstairs we have an almost identical version of the old vacuum cleaner, complete with an old-fashion cord. I used it the other day, and it was like pushing a stalled Zamboni down the driveway. The cord was underfoot every second, and if I wasn’t tripping over it, it was caught beneath a door or tied in a knot.
Until then, I’d felt two ways about the cordless sweeper: It was sleek, all right and lightweight, but are humans meant to use appliances with the heft of a trash picker? Perhaps we’re supposed to wrestle with encumbering cords and heavy machinery as the sparks fly upward.
Ten minutes shoving the dense weight of the upstairs vacuum was enough to put those questions to rest. I’ll take a lightweight model any day. As Linda Ronstadt says, it’s so weezy it’s so weezy it’s so weezy it’s so weezy. Also, the dust container is small and must be emptied frequently. It’s a lot like lint removal, and you know how I appreciate lint.
Email margo.bartlett@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Just thinking: New cordless vacuum is a sweeping sensation
