Smokey Mountain Breakdown

So, I use part of my "stimulus" payment to buy a new vacuum cleaner. I've been vacuum cleanerless for many months since my trusty old upright gave up the ghost. Me and the broom have been tight ever since. S'okay since I have hardwood floors.

I choose the Eureka 4D bagless idiot wonder. I confess to being swayed by the cherry red color and powerful looking design. It's the second time I've given bagless technology a go. And once again I am underwhelmed. Right out of the box, it refuses to work in the upright position. It works fine from the attachments but given that it is an upright vacuum cleaner, one would expect the uprighted primary feature to be the one that works best. Anyway, it manages to smear dirt around and picks nothing up. It also weighs a ton.

My experience with bagless vacuum technology has become rather like the classic comedy sketch One Leg Too Few in which Dudley Moore and Peter Cook act out a casting call in which a one-legged man shows up to audition for the role of Tarzan.

Cook: Mr Spiggott - you are, I believe, auditioning for the part of Tarzan.

Moore: Right.

Cook: Now Mr Spiggott, I couldn't help noticing - almost at once - that you are a one-legged person.

Moore: You noticed that?

Cook: I noticed that, Mr Spiggott. When you have been in the business as long as I have, you come to notice these little things almost instinctively.

So, I call the Eureka people and the conversation goes something like this:

Rosie: Mr. Eureka - I bought a Eureka upright and it won't work in the upright position.

Mr. Eureka: Right.

Rosie: Now Mr. Eureka, I couldn't help noticing - almost at once - that an upright vacuum cleaner should most likely work in the upright position, but this does not.

Mr. Eureka: You noticed that?

Rosie: I noticed that, Mr. Eureka. When you have been sucking as long as I have, you come to notice when something doesn't suck almost instinctively.

We go around like this for a while. My argument is that it cannot possibly have a blockage unless one was placed there in the factory especially for me. His argument is that I have flushed tampons down it or some such nonsense and all I have to do is take a phillips head screwdriver and remove whatever was magically crammed up there the moment it was unboxed. Never mind that the screws are some weird star shape a phillips head won't fit in or that the refer to page 17 in the troubleshooting guide directs me to a Spanish language page.

Fortunately, Walmart has agreed to take back the offending vacuum cleaner so I don't have to take the thing to Morristown for service.

Anyway, I'm completely against bagless vacuums at this point. I'm not sure what Dyson is smoking that they think they can charge 400 bucks for one of these things. I'm convinced even the high end of these would be inferior to a vacuum with it's bag properly where it should be.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.