Dec. 31, 2009

I have fallen in love. He’s lean, he’s mean and he’s the most wonderful vacuum you’ve ever seen.

My not-so-old vacuum is dead, so after days and crumbs and knee-deep Christmas tree mess, and after hoping my vacuum would self-heal if I gave it some alone time (this method is not recommended by the vacuum repair specialists), I finally gave up and returned my Hoover canister to Costco.

I’ve had it four months. Four months and the thing was as dead as a dust mite.

My budget after returning the dud was $200. We all know that $200 can get a girl a nice intermediate vacuum. Granted, there’s no room to consider a Dyson or a Rainbow, but for $200, I knew I could find something that would handle the debris.

I was walking through the vacuum aisle at Costco before heading over to Sears, checking prices to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything spectacular, when I saw it. Black, simple, slimming — this baby only weighed 9 pounds. The very echo of its name (and the commercials that go with it) called to me — “Oreck,” it said.

I looked at the price tag and my heart fell. It was $100 over budget. Even so, I couldn’t resist running my hands along its sleek zipper and fondling the handle a bit.

“You know that’s too much money, right?” Mr. Tightwad says.

“I know. I’m just looking. It never hurts to do a little research.” I stood there, researching it, thinking about all that power packed into such a light little package. It was just begging to take a trip around the living room with me at the handle.

“Come on, babe, put it down.” I carefully returned the vacuum (with accompanying mini hand-held vac, that’s like getting an extra vacuum for free, people) and slowly made my way to the car.

My driver dropped me off at Sears and I tried to perk up. I’ve owned a Kenmore, I like Kenmore. It’s a nice, reliable, heavy, bulky vacuum that isn’t even in the same category as the Oreck.

I flagged down a floor man and had him walk me through my best options for my budget. All the fancy bells and whistles seemed so overdone after the simple, powerful pull of the other vacuum.

Hard as I tried, I just couldn’t commit myself to something that didn’t cry out, “Plug me in!” Vacuuming is hard enough, I need a machine that’s begging for action.

“Honey, it’s just a vacuum,” he says when I return to the car.

“Just a vacuum? Right, so that’s ‘just’ a gun you carry, hmm? No need to have anything that shoots well, it’s just an accessory,” I say. “Besides, I can guarantee I use my weapon a whole lot more than you use yours.”

(Let the record show that he wasn’t nearly as impressed with this monologue as I was.)

In the end, my man knows when it’s time to throw in the cord and let his woman have her way. Hey, he likes a clean house as much as the next bread winner. If they only realized that it’s all about having the right toys.

See more at Annie's blog at regardingannie.com