The Rebirth of Millie's Arch Nemesis

Several months ago, visitors were on their way to our house, and as usual I'd put off at least some aspect of cleaning until the last minute. This time, I'd waited to clean up the dog and cat hair. I usually make vacuuming the very last thing I do before company arrives, because virtually the second all the pet hair gets sucked up, more rains down to replace it immediately. The hardwood floors don't lie, and it's not pleasant to be entertaining guests as dust bunnies roll across their feet like tumbleweed.

So I was frantically running the vacuum across the floor when it unexpectedly quit. In a panic, I unplugged it and plugged it back in. I kicked it. I cursed at it. It did not care.

It was an old vacuum, so I can't say I was surprised. The timing was just really bad. I grabbed my broom, but I detest sweeping up animal hair. I feel like sweeping merely sends the hair flying into the air and swirling around. And it takes longer.

I was only half finished with the sweeping when the company knocked on the door. After offering a brief welcome, Lee took over the entertaining while I slipped upstairs to finish sweeping.

For a while, we tried to get by without a vacuum. But I found sweeping to be so useless, I did it less and less often. But the animals weren't shedding any less, and the hairball problem was out of control. Not only do we hate living among the furry pet-offspring, I can't imagine bringing a baby home to the house of hair. Surely DFACS would take her away before she could begin crawling on the pet-fur carpet.

So we started researching vacuums, and one brand kept coming up: Dyson. But the price tag was, to me, nearly unthinkable. I hate the hair balls so much I was willing to consider paying hundreds for the mother-of-all-vacuums, but just for a minute.

Tonight, we found a compromise, and purchased a much more reasonably priced Bissell. Lee put it together, and we vacuumed 2 rooms. So far, it seems to be working very well (much better than our old one even before it choked and died), so we're happy. I'm looking forward to tackling the rest of the rooms tomorrow, and having a hair-free house - at least for a minute or two.

But one member of our family is very unhappy:

As soon as Lee opened the box, before he'd really begun assembling the vacuum, Millie started going crazy. She barked and barked at the vacuum as if it were surely about to consume us all. She used to do this with our old vacuum too. You wouldn't have to turn it on - just the mere sight of it sent her into fits. I really think she hates vacuums more than just about anything else in the world. The whole time we vacuumed tonight, she followed a step or two behind, barking incessantly. It was as if her once vanquished foe had found a way to be reborn, and its sole purpose was to terrorize her once more.

Oh well - it's worth it to have a cleaner house. Now I just need to invest in some quality ear plugs.