(Hopefully) Stopping The Insanity…

Sometimes you go into a relationship knowing it’s statistically doomed to failure. You make the commitment and you involve yourself, you disregard the fact that every similar relationship you’ve had ended with one of the parties being tossed aside and discarded without a backward glance or a moment’s regret.

Sometimes you know you’re doing the same thing all over again and expecting a different result (the definition of insanity), but you do it all over again, anyway.

Call me crazy, but I have entered one of those relationships: I have once more committed myself and too much of my money to a vacuum cleaner.

I do this hoping-- as I have always hoped--to achieve a relationship of long duration. One which can be counted on, one based on mutual gratification. This shouldn’t be difficult, I’m thinking. I will give the vacuum a nice place to live in the closet. The vacuum in turn will disappear the cat hair that seems to adhere to everything except the cat. I do this because I hope for this relationship and I believe this relationship exists in the universe – despite my past disappointments – because I had that relationship once.

Once made me a believer forever, and I will always fondly remember my Kenmore canister. We had a beautiful relationship from the moment we met on the third floor of Sears, one in which we were both happy and well provided for. After a short time, I couldn’t imagine my life without that vacuum.

Yet eventually, it came to an end. I said goodbye to my Kenmore canister in 2005. Devoted as we were to each other, I did not receive custody in my divorce and had only a few brief visitations between apartment moves.

We separated forever, my Kenmore going on to live a nice life with my ex-husband and his equally doting cleaning lady, me plunging half-heartedly into new relationships, still hoping to find that same satisfaction. Without going into painful details, let me simply admit I was let down, respectively, by a Eureka, an Oreck, a Fantom, and completely devastated by two different Dirt Devils. Despite hope, and belief…it always ended with that trash bin outside.

Losing hope, I resigned myself to simply ‘settling’, making do with whatever model JC Penny had on sale, knowing I was simply filling four to six month voids in my life and completely ignoring my real needs for completely clean floors.

Oh, I suppose I always committed. I invested in them. They, in turn, held up their ends of the bargain completely in the beginning but faltered after sometimes a month, often as long as six, and the Fantom stuck it out for almost a year. But sooner or later, everything ended in disappointment and we split. They packed up and moved to the trash bin outside and once more I was alone.

Time went on and I adopted a calloused attitude, deciding ‘all vacuums are the same,’ and they ‘only want one thing’ (a closet to live in and no expectation of having to do actual work). At the height of my disenchantment, as I’d put yet another Fantom into the dumpster, I was saved by a friend, whose intention it never was to save me.

I suppose I will remain ever grateful to Diane, who one morning came to work and raved – yes, raved – about her satisfaction with her new Dyson vacuum. Not wanting to believe her, I couldn’t help myself, and found myself actually reading their advertisements, listening to their commercials on the television. Willing myself to believe once more. Hoping against hope because honestly, Diane is a tough sell. She doesn’t put up with a lot of B.S. from anybody or anything, and would never have found herself involved in the ridiculous relationships I’d invested in and later deposited in the dumpster.

So, believing that sometimes the first step forward is a leap of faith, I placed my order on Saturday. Added express shipping for two reasons, I just couldn’t decide which: a) I couldn’t wait for Dyson’s arrival, and the beginning of (finally!) a relationship that would turn out to be all it seemed to be, or b): the sooner Dyson got here, the sooner it would let me down, and may as well get it over with.

Dyson arrived this afternoon, and in a very short while – probably only an hour or so – we’ll begin this new adventure together. He has great references. His warranty is ironclad. He’s actually quite attractive. I hate to admit this before we’ve even been alone together, but I think I could actually grow old with him.

Only time will tell and ready or not, I’m making the leap.