3517 Filthy floors

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Stories are simple sequences of events, plots are about causes,
motivation ..., what stories mean. ...life is all stories, and fiction is all plots.....
-- Peter Ho Davies --

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Well, I am only a little stiff today. A little bit of pain down the left hip and thigh. I put the brace on anyway, just to make sure. So far, so good.

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My floors are gross. I haven't swept or vacuumed in ages, and there are crushed leaves, dirt, and cat hair everywhere. I passionately hate vacuuming. The weight. The dragging and controlling of the cord. I purposely rejected carpeting in the new house so it would be easier to keep the floors and stairs clean, but, uh, I hate sweeping, too. The bits escaping, the dust flying, the trying to corral it all. The moving of things in the way.

I bought two vacuum cleaners for this house so I wouldn't have to carry any up and down stairs. But the flipping things are heavy to use. I prefer canisters, because the weight stays on the floor and the head is light, but good canisters are next to impossible to find these days. So I got bagless uprights. I hate them. Being short, I hold the handle lower than most people, which puts the entire weight of the mechanism on my arm, and then moving it out and back strains my lower back. Hate, hate, hate!

So I got the Roombas, one for each floor. But there are a lot of table and chair legs the Roomba can't get between, and the floor is cluttered with cat and toddler toys that I have to pick up first, plus the cat's food tray, and curtains that touch the floor, and shoes under the bed with shoelaces that the Roombas like to eat, and, and, and, and it's a LOT of work for not such a great job (Roomba's exhaust tends to blow dirt, especially cat hair, sideways onto tracks it's already cleaned). I haven't turned them loose in months.

Sigh.

I hate it all.

I looked at the floors today and thought, "I've GOT to do something, now!"

So, I bought (online) a rechargeable vacuum stick. It's lightweight, no cord. We used to call them electric brooms. It's a Eureka, so it should be adequate. With its ten inch wide head it should be easy to maneuver around stuff. No bag.

I don't know how long it will take to get here, but nothing will be done with the floors until it arrives.

Temporary reprieve.
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