Vacuum

Some time today, I get to clean my vacuum.

It's one of those Dyson rollerball things. And YES, they are really good vacuums. The only drawback they have, is if the "belt" breaks, you can't just replace it; you've got to buy it a whole new transmission. The cost I was last quoted on that was $75, about 4 years ago.

Why do I have to clean it? And by clean, I mean wash every interior surface I possibly can. Well, you see, there was this incident with my daughter, our new puppy, and a bowl of Kraft© Macaroni and Cheese.

I'll just let you imagine what happened. The result was pretty standard: daughter crying with mac-n-cheese in her hair and oddly, a bruise appearing on her forehead, dog trying to eat all the mac-n-cheese off the floor, husband yelling and trying to figure out what happened (fuel to the fire...*sigh*), me holding the dog back.

I handed my dog restraint task over to my husband, and asked my son to start picking up the noodles so I could attend to my hysterical, bruised, and gooey daughter. Son started to cry, saying he didn't want to do his task alone. I assured him I would come back and help as I was following Daughter into the bathroom.

Daughter climbed into the shower still crying, but crying in the shower usually isn't a bad thing. I promised to come back and check on her.

I came back to the dining room to find the dog barking from the other bathroom; she must have been too excited to eat the toilet paper. My son was just standing there, not picking up the mac-n-cheese, because my husband was vacuuming it up with my Dyson. My NEARLY NEW $400 VACUUM.

Now, you guys are probably thinking, "What? He saw a problem, and he solved it. Why are you women never happy?"

But all you women are thinking, we are "never" happy because you men continually fail to realize that lack of forethought in solving one problem, often creates many more. Like in this case, the problems created were:

1) Gooey vacuum, which was used to do a job it was never meant to do; that being: vacuuming a moist food product.

2) Vacuum was expensive.

3) Son witnessed the vacuum misuse and now thinks it's okay to vacuum up food. This will take years to unlearn.

4) Husband has no intention of cleaning the vacuum himself; it never occurred to him he would have to do so.

5) New puppy wants to chew up the gooey, but expensive, vacuum.

6) I'm mad because I have to clean it, and husband will get mad because I'm mad, because after all, HE SOLVED THE PROBLEM.

7) None if this is even really relevant because now my daughter has a big bruise on her forehead that she's embarrassed about.

I'll point out that it was only one cereal bowl's worth of mac-n-cheese. It would have taken less than two minutes on one's knees, picking it up by hand, to clean up.

But I will get over it. I could point out to Husband that he once again made a mess he has no intention of cleaning up, and ask him to please clean it since he made the mess; at which time he will be mad at me for telling him to do a chore because it will cut into his weekend nap time. Even if he agrees to do it, he won't. He simply won't. If he was going to, he would have done it right away. Him being this way is hard-wired into his system, and I have to keep reminding myself of that.

I won't even ask him to clean it. Because, you know what? I'm a control freak. Any cleaning job on my vacuum, done by anyone but me or other select individuals (who are not currently available) wouldn't be good enough. This control freakishness is my problem.

Time to go clean a vacuum. But before I do, let me just say: This is a prime example of the happy marriage tactic known as "Pick your battles." Because compared to all the electronic junk my husband has temporarily stored in my closet, blocking access to 90% of my clothes, the vacuum thing is NOTHING.