the vacuum chronicles

i had a very eventful afternoon today. i have been wanting to "deep clean" my apartment for quite some time, but i could always manage to find an excuse not to: the vacuum was broken, the furniture was too heavy, i didn't have enough time.



finally, a few weeks ago my roommate moved the rug to get rid of an unsightly bump in the carpet. this rid us of the carpet bump but left one side of the rug hanging over itself because we were unable to lift the heavy tables that hold the tv in order to shove the extra rug under there. it was clear what had to be done.



today, enlisting the help of my roommate's friend/boss/houseguest lucas, we moved all the furniture out of the room and proceeded to fix the carpet bumps and then vacuum. the vacuum was very hard to push, but I thought it was because the self-propelling wheel was covered with years of accumulated hair and dust. i was wrong.



after undertaking the thankless job of cleaning off the wheel, lucas informed us that something was broken. the wheel should be spinning, he said. he then proceeded to take apart the machine.



lucas found the culprit: a broken strap which would make the thing turn. with lucas's encouragement, i decided to set out on a quest to find a new part for the vacuum, and not just give up on our cleaning.



it didn't take long to walk to lowe's and we managed to find similar piece fairly easily. but the total trip took forever because everyone and their mother decided they needed something at lowe's today!



eventually we made it back to the apartment and lucas fixed the vacuum up. it works like a dream now, and i'm so happy i didn't give up on it. thanks lucas!



and if lucas goes on to become a super famous singer-songwriter (which i'm pretty sure he will) i can always say, hey. that guy cleaned out my vacuum. i knew him when.