COME SEE THE SMARTER SIDE OF SEARS
Click here to return to the recent columns.
There are people out there whose sole job in life is to make sure idiots do as little damage as possible.
Fortunately, they stopped me just in time.
It all started a few weeks ago when I got new carpet for the house. (Yes, I already told you about the carpet. If I’m going to rerun a column, I’m not going to select one from last week. I’ll at least go back three weeks.)
Anyway, post-new carpet, I decided that we needed a new vacuum. Our current vacuum had been a noble warrior, but time was catching up to it. That, and it weighed roughly the same as Don Rickles. I told my wife that I would head up the vacuum hunting, because this was, for all intents and purposes, a major household appliance, and needed my keen guy intuition.
Truth be told, I just wanted to go to Sears by myself.
After an hour or so in the tool section ("Hmmm. I’ll bet I could find a use for a Craftsman drill press with vise"), I moseyed over to the vacuum section. This, I figured, would be an easy decision. How many kinds of vacuums can there be, I wondered aloud, making a woman who was standing next to me stare at me and then scurry away.
Well, it turns out there are just slightly fewer styles of vacuums than there are U.S. Congressmen. Not knowing where to start, I deferred to the tried and tested method for purchasing appliances:
In no time flat, I was on my way home with my new space aged vacuum, which, by the way, has a feature called a Dirty Light. When you are vacuuming, this light comes on when it senses that your floor is dirty. I’ve got to figure out how to disconnect that light, because it really makes me feel like the vacuum is making a snide comment on our housekeeping skills. I’m sure the neighbors are wondering why they keep hearing screams of "Go off, Dirty Light! The carpet is clean!!!"
The first time I used the vacuum, I was mighty impressed. This vacuum was not playing around with the carpet. Room to room I went, vacuuming our new carpet. I had almost made the circuit when I noticed the vacuum was having some trouble picking up stuff in the back bedroom.
I turned off the vacuum and began to examine the underside of it, as if there would be a small screen showing an instructional repair video or something. What I did see, however, was a glob of what looked like carpet, all wedged into the tube. Using needle-nosed pliers, a coat hanger, a shish kabob, and several newly created curse words, I extracted enough fuzzy fibers to carpet an additional room. That’s when my medium-term memory kicked in, and there, in a Brady Bunch like dream sequence, I remember the woman at the carpet store saying, "After the carpet is installed, you’re going to have to vacuum it a few times until all of the loose fibers rise up." Now, at the time I just nodded and smiled, but I think she was referring to this phenomenon that I had since dubbed That Stupid @$@%# Vacuum Getting Clogged with all of that @#$#%#!% Carpet #@$@!#$#%.
After unclogging the vacuum, I fired it up. Seemed to be working fine. I picked up the hose attachment, however and found that there was no suction whatsoever. That does it, I said, quite indignantly, even if my only audience was the cat. I put the vacuum in my car and headed back up to Sears. They were going to give me a new vacuum, by golly, one that doesn’t break after clogging one time.
I went to the vacuum center, vacuum in tow, and three clerks converged upon me. Perhaps they could see the idiot fumes emanating from me. I explained that the vacuum just didn’t work. With that, one of the clerks opened up the front and showed: any guesses? That’s right – a full vacuum bag. "Uh, sir, you need to change the vacuum bag when it gets full."
It’s good to see that the good folks of Sears are there to protect me from myself. Without their help, there is distinct possibility that I would have tried to take the vacuum cleaner apart, possibly shorting out the neighborhood in the process. They were very nice during the whole process, even enduring my really bad joke ("Not very often people return something because it doesn’t suck!"). And, the most admirable part – they didn’t even laugh at me. At least, not while I was in their presence.