When the Dustbuster was introduced into the American home, housewives everywhere rejoiced.
Now we could clean a small mess without lugging out the heavy old vacuum cleaner, right?
What we didn’t realize, and are destined to live with, is that this small appliance has become a monster, and we are its slaves. What was supposed to be a huge timesaver has become anything but.
Case in point: I went to visit my mother one day, walked into her house, and found her on her hands and knees, or rather “hand” and knees. Because, of course, she had the Dustbuster in one hand, and was systematically vacuuming her carpet.
It turns out she had spilled some crumbs on the Dining Room floor, and had grabbed the Dustbuster to do the job. But as we all know now, once you’re down on the floor you can see all the other crumbs, dirt, dead bugs, and dustbunnies that live down there.
So her 12-inch diameter circle of cleanup area turned into 12 feet, then 20 feet, and before she knew it, she had vacuumed the entire first floor of her townhouse with the Dustbuster.
It had taken her over an hour to do it, and the batteries were dead, or else she probably would have continued right up the stairs and into the second story. Her knees were raw and her back was killing her. It took her a week to get over it. But at least she didn’t have to haul out the big vacuum cleaner, by golly!
The other supposed “time saver” on these little gems is that you don’t have to ever change the bag. Yeah, right.
I have yet to ever empty the filter without it spilling on me, the counter, the floor, or all of the above.
Then after a while, the filter is so choked up with little stuff that doesn’t shake loose when you empty it, it starts sorta coughing when you try to use it for more than a couple of seconds. That’s the signal that it needs cleaning.
Warning!!! Cleaning these little buggers is messier that cleaning the oven, and that’s pretty messy. When you run it under the water, the dust turns to sludge, and the sludge splashes everywhere.
I think the manufacturers are counting on this, so that you’ll just go buy a new one when the old one gets choked up.
A relative to the Dustbuster is the little hand-held brooms. I keep one hanging in my pantry for those small cleanups on the kitchen floor.
The other day after I gave one of the kids a haircut, I was squatting down using this little broom to clean up all the hair. Some was out of reach, so I did a couple of duck walks until I could reach it. Then I saw some more.
Well, to make a long story short, I duck-walked all over the kitchen until my poor old knees couldn’t do it anymore, then I went down on all fours. I swept the whole kitchen like this.
Time and again, I thought to myself, “Just get the big broom … it’ll be much easier, you dummy!” But I guess that just makes too much sense to a person who is waddling around a kitchen.
Well, gotta go. I see a small spot on the window that needs cleaning ……
