What is it with kids and vacuum cleaners, exactly?!
My kids have done this to me more times than I can even count, by this point. And it's not just my kids. Nearly everyone I know has complained, at one time or another, of the same things, so I'm led to believe that it's a universal kid phenomenon.
I'm speaking, of course, of the consistent failure of anyone under 18, give or take, to understand the vacuum cleaner's basic inability to pick up strings, threads, push pins, hot wheels tires, airsoft pellets, coins, hardware, pets, livestock, dead people or abandoned buildings.
This is just one of the areas where I can never decide which is worse, when they help out around here, or when they refuse to.
EVERY SINGLE TIME one of them runs the vacuum cleaner, it's just a matter of time before I hear the inevitable bellow of, "Mom!!!!! The vacuum cleaner's not working right!!!!"
And I always tell them to shut it off and unplug it until I can get there, then I rush to check it out at my earliest convenience.
Sometimes, the dust cup or bag will simply be jammed so solidly that there's just no room for even one more particle of dust, let alone a full blown dust bunny. But more commonly, there will be a solid blockage of dust jammed around the brush roller, which is usually wound with about enough thread, strings and hair to wrap around the sun 20 or 30 times, and the solid dust blockage will be firmly anchored in place with screws, toothpicks, broken pieces of plastic, safety pins, shredded condoms or balloons (I'm not sure which, nor am I sure I want to know), globs of scotch tape, and even an old, missing library book on one occasion.
And every once in awhile, there will also be a solid jam of dust interspersed with solid objects in the length of hose running between the brush roller and the detachable section of hose. So since my oldest is now 20, I've been doing battle with our vacuum cleaners for quite some time now. Before I became a mother, I managed to get by on the same hand-me-down vacuum cleaner that some relative or other gave my husband when he was a bachelor, and never had a problem until one day when I got overwhelmed and he pitched in to help me out, assisted by our oldest, who was then a preschooler.
We've gone through three vacuum cleaners since then, two of which have eventually gotten destroyed beyond my ability to clean and repair them back into shape. And I recently pressured my husband into buying me a new one, after nearly two years without a working vacuum cleaner.
Three times since then, my kids have run the vacuum to help me out. And three times now, I've had to take the sucker apart and clear out the jams.
And I can't help wondering whether that may be my calling in life, at this point --- dechildificating vacuum cleaners for fun and profit. Granted, I don't know how to do any serious repairs to them, but since the problem tends to be kid abuse the vast majority of the time, I could probably do a pretty good, solid business.
I'm speaking, of course, of the consistent failure of anyone under 18, give or take, to understand the vacuum cleaner's basic inability to pick up strings, threads, push pins, hot wheels tires, airsoft pellets, coins, hardware, pets, livestock, dead people or abandoned buildings.
This is just one of the areas where I can never decide which is worse, when they help out around here, or when they refuse to.
EVERY SINGLE TIME one of them runs the vacuum cleaner, it's just a matter of time before I hear the inevitable bellow of, "Mom!!!!! The vacuum cleaner's not working right!!!!"
And I always tell them to shut it off and unplug it until I can get there, then I rush to check it out at my earliest convenience.
Sometimes, the dust cup or bag will simply be jammed so solidly that there's just no room for even one more particle of dust, let alone a full blown dust bunny. But more commonly, there will be a solid blockage of dust jammed around the brush roller, which is usually wound with about enough thread, strings and hair to wrap around the sun 20 or 30 times, and the solid dust blockage will be firmly anchored in place with screws, toothpicks, broken pieces of plastic, safety pins, shredded condoms or balloons (I'm not sure which, nor am I sure I want to know), globs of scotch tape, and even an old, missing library book on one occasion.
And every once in awhile, there will also be a solid jam of dust interspersed with solid objects in the length of hose running between the brush roller and the detachable section of hose. So since my oldest is now 20, I've been doing battle with our vacuum cleaners for quite some time now. Before I became a mother, I managed to get by on the same hand-me-down vacuum cleaner that some relative or other gave my husband when he was a bachelor, and never had a problem until one day when I got overwhelmed and he pitched in to help me out, assisted by our oldest, who was then a preschooler.
We've gone through three vacuum cleaners since then, two of which have eventually gotten destroyed beyond my ability to clean and repair them back into shape. And I recently pressured my husband into buying me a new one, after nearly two years without a working vacuum cleaner.
Three times since then, my kids have run the vacuum to help me out. And three times now, I've had to take the sucker apart and clear out the jams.
And I can't help wondering whether that may be my calling in life, at this point --- dechildificating vacuum cleaners for fun and profit. Granted, I don't know how to do any serious repairs to them, but since the problem tends to be kid abuse the vast majority of the time, I could probably do a pretty good, solid business.