Is it wrong to love a vacuum cleaner?
I mean truly, madly, deeply – to love it? I mean to love it in a way that I look forward to spending every day of the rest of my life with it, growing old with it, and knowing it’s always there for me when I come home at the end of the day? Is it wrong to feel a lightening of my heart and mood when I plug it in, knowing the time we are about to spend together will be everything I’d ever hoped it could be and even better than depicted on its commercials?
No, it’s not wrong. And even if it is, I can’t be the first person in the world to fall in love with an inanimate object. Sheree loves shoes. When she gets a new pair her skin flushes, she smiles so wide you’d think her lips would split, and there’s a lilt to her voice as if she’s on the verge of belting out a Broadway show tune or one of the more popular songs by ABBA at any moment. Sheree loves her shoes and she cherishes her shoes so much that she boots (pun unintended) her husband out of his closet space to make more room for her shoes.
I have a cousin who loves Hummel figurines and depression glass, so much that she’ll go without groceries in order to collect them and without sleep in order to bid for them on E-bay into all hours of the night.
Until I met the Dyson, the closest I ever came to this kind of emotion was with my love of books. No matter how they end, I can’t part with them. They’re in my life and plugging up my shelves forever.
So no, I did not invent this behavior and honestly, from the moment I extracted that Dyson from its packaging (this was not easy to do. It was packed and shipped as if it were en route to a third world country and would be transported for the majority of the trip via dogsled) and flipped the “On” switch, I was truly in love.
Words fail me when I try to describe my emotions as I ran the brush attachment over that first throw pillow. I hope never to see that kind of dust and whatever-it-is ever come out of anything I’ve actually put my head on to nap ever again, but what a moment! Likewise I was awed as I ran it over the rug in the living room. At last – a product that did what it said it was going to do: It got my stuff really clean. Not like the Fantom and the Oreck and the two Dirt Devils, who over the years merely extracted a little bit of stuff and assured me I’d obtained ‘maximum performance’.
I’ve experienced maximum performance. I will never be fooled again.
I know this is a new relationship and I’m moving awfully fast in my declaration of total devotion. The Dyson C324 is, after all, a machine. A machine is only a machine, and is therefore subject to faults. Perhaps I should step back and reserve judgement, remember all the vacuums that have let me down in the past. Wasn’t I just as head over heels for the Fantom? Didn’t the Dirt Devil and I have some great times together in the beginning? Wouldn’t a rational adult know enough, given these types of experiences, to step back and remain objective?
Yes, a rational adult would do that. But as I said, I am in love with this vacuum, and I don’t fall in love easily. Once I have, however, the only recourse is to follow my heart. Follow my heart and believe that what it’s telling me is true. Right now seeing is believing and if that Dyson has a flaw, I’m not seeing it. What I am seeing is the two of us together, cleaning throw pillows for many years to come.
Perhaps even a person like me, who has avoided the very idea for so long, is still capable of envisioning and believing in a love that lasts forever. I will have to think about that.
Right now I’m rather anxious to get home, and ask it how its day was.
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