hoover

The mess has got beyond the casual cosy stage. It is on the brink of the health hazzard stage. The next time I'm home alone I search in the cupboard by the frontdoor. Muffled under the useful plastic bags, shoes that leak which we don't want to throw away so are keeping for the summer, the waterproof trousers, 2 and a half pairs of wellies, coats that have been thrown in there since the hook fell off, and assorted dusty cleaning apparatus, is the hoover. I wheel it over a welly out into the hall. It creaks, like Marvin in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It looks uptight. I unravel the tidily wound flex, move the suitcase infront of the socket, plug it in, 
ROAR.
I jump out of my skin.
Must have turned it on getting it out. It is hoovering up it's flex. I can't find the off switch. REEAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG, it is still hoovering up it's flex.
I find the off switch. Peace. Feeling like a cross between a dental hygenist and a conjuror I extract the flex. It is a bit warm, but otherwise ok.

As the hoover came with the flat, I know it has lived with someone who knows how to use it.
I look at the hall. It is not exactly cleared for take off. I move aside the bag of clinking bottles lost in the hyperspace between outside the bedroom door and the bottlebank, the potatoes the lady upstairs kindly gave us, which are now sprouting, and your box of tools; I throw away the empty bottles of wd40 and bike oil and, all floaty like someone heaving sandbags out of a balloon basket, grasp the hoover handle, press the lever at the bottom to release the gymnast in it, and we're off.

I tend to judge hoovers by the size of what they can hoover up. This one is GOOD. It is dark in the hall since the bulb went two weeks ago, so I'm not sure what it's eating, but judging by the rattles it's doing well. We move onto the bathroom (I'm not used to a carpetted bathroom: it's lovely, but not very practical) I worry slightly about being electrocuted by the water soaked in round the bath, but it's fine. Great hoover this. Labels fallen out of my pockets from work, shreds of washed tissue out of my clothes when I get dressed, floppper flopper grump ROAR.
Bedroom next. Moses at the Red Sea I kick aside the dirty clothes. Its great seeing the carpet change colour. The hoover even fits a few inches under the bed. Just that bit of fluff there and it's on to the kitchen! I'm feeling really virtuous.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrredddd. Stop.
Grddggggggge. Stop.
I recognise this noise?
OFF SWITCH. Help! I fumble for the off switch.
Off.
Phew!
I recognise this noise in connection with Mum's hoovers. (I hadn't been allowed to hoover since the second time I broke the hoover. The second time I hoovered.)  I turn it on it's back. It looks like a dead bird with it's legs in the air.
Oh God, THERE'S SMOKE COMING OUT. Is it about to explode? Set the house on fire? I unplug it. Should I take it outside? Like Arnold Schwarzenneger running around with a ticking bomb?
I ring up Mum.

"Mum, the hoover cut out, and there's smoke!!!"
"Doesn't suprise me"
"Yes, but is it going to explode? Should I put it outside?"
"Hm, might set the house on fire."
"That's what I thought"
"How much smoke?"
I dash back to the bedroom. It's stopped smoking.
PHEW.
"It's stopped smoking. Do you know what's wrong with it?"
"Have you checked to see if you've got anything stuck? Well, go and do that. Good luck"

It is giving off vibes of pain.
Cautiously I twizzle the bristly roller thing, but can't see anything.
You ring up. Nervously I tell you. But you are not cross at all!  I wonder where I can get it fixed, and how I will manage it on the bus. It stands like a carved sainted martyr in the hall waiting for monday.

I do my washing, to stop feeling guilty.

Saturday, you decide to do your washing, too (I'm not to be trusted not to put in red things that run, or check back pockets for £5 notes and tissues) You frown in perplexion as you load the machine
When it's done, you begin hanging stuff on the airer. I love watching you do this : the look of concentration, the sudden darting in, the quick toss, the turn of the head and narrowed eyes,
like a great artist in the process of creating a masterpiece. The reaches into the washing machine become gropes, spins, till you peer with even more perplexion than before, into it's empty mysterious deeps.
"What's wrong?" I ask
"It's one of those things. Like Schrodinger's cat"
"?"
"How things can move to other dimensions" You explain about Schrodinger's cat.

When it is unnavoidable, you see if you can find what's wrong with the hoover, bring it into the kitchen where the light is good, turn it upside down, fiddle with it a bit.

Reach between the bristly roller. Smiling with delight, start pulling something out.
"What is it?" I ask.
"The other one of my favourite socks!"

You switch the hoover on.
PURRRRRRRRRRR