Dream Vacuum Cleaner

I spend three days out of the week vacuuming. Not because I love vacuuming with the passion that dare not speak its name, but because we have a large house and I have a very small tolerance for vacuuming, and so must break it into “manageable” chunks, although I confess my actual idea of a manageable chunk of vacuuming is something on the order of 30 seconds. Thus the ironic quotation marks.

I fear this is a character flaw; if I lived in a coat closet, my tolerance for vacuuming would be much smaller than the actual square footage of the closet.

I have tried valiantly to make vacuuming endurable. Yes, getting the model with a HEPA filter and a really long cord and the motorized brush is definitely an improvement. The problem is, you still have to VACUUM with it. You still have to drag it around behind you, accidentally banging table legs, running over your toes, and smacking it into the wall. You still trip over the cord, which, being longer, is more treacherous and seems to desire far more human mayhem and injury than the average inanimate object. You still have to kick a heavy, balky canister out of the way constantly because it utterly refuses to follow obediently behind like a well-trained dog. You still end up saying words that would make a longshoreman want to wash your mouth out with soap.

What I want is to chop the cord off and get the blasted canister off the floor and out of my way. I want a device that floats, that has a weak gravitational attachment to me and so will follow me from place to place, while being simultaneously repelled by walls, lamps, doors, et cetera because what is the point of replacing an appliance that smacks into everything on the floor level with one that smacks into everything six feet off the ground?

I want a device that bobs happily in my wake without ever, ever touching me as I pass the business end of the wand over the floors and carpets. Preferably while wearing pearls, high heels, and a really snappy cocktail dress. I want a device that runs on a solar cell or pixie dust or even a small-but-sincere nuclear reactor so I never have to deal with another cord grabbing my ankles and refusing to let go.

"My new Atomic Dream Vacuum Sweeper is so handy. It even glows in the dark!"

I want POWER. I want SUCTION. I want NEGATIVE DECIBEL LEVELS. I want the vacuum cleaner that the Jetsons would have.

It really is too bad that soldiers don’t vacuum as part of their normal military duties. If they did, the Pentagon would have developed my dream vacuum (armored, of course) at least a decade ago, and would now be introducing the Drone version, which doesn’t require a human operator. Sigh.

And now, alas, I must go fire up the Not My Dream Vacuum Cleaner. The dogs have disappeared and I fear the dust bunnies have them trapped somewhere.