I have issues with vacuum cleaners.

I get very frustrated when I vacuum because I find most vacuums don’t have enough sucking power, the cords are way too short, I trip over the canister, I pull the canister into a table and knock over something breakable.  Yeah, I have issues with vacuum cleaners.  I’d really love to have one of those robot vacuums, the one that just goes around and does your work for you – you know the one?  That gets me thinking about a robot dish washer, laundress, and bed maker.  Yeah man, bring on the future!

Of course, my vacuum issues do not stop me from using them.  Like yesterday for instance, I pulled out the vacuum and started in the back of the house.  I worked my way up the hall.  Charlie was playing in the hall with some of his WowWee robots (I believe I saw RoboBoa, RoboSapien V2, RoboQuad, and RoboRaptor).  He was a bit perturbed at me for interrupting his play; but, he seemed happy enough to move the robots so I could get the job done quickly.

I turned the corner and started vacuuming the living room.  Every few minutes the damned vacuum would shut off.  I would click the button, nothing would happen.  Because we tend to have light bulbs burning out every other day around here, I started cussing the electrical system in the house.  Damned old wiring.  But, just when I was about to completely lose it, the vacuum would start back up and I could keep going.

After a few minutes of this happening, I began to realize that something was amiss.  First of all, Charlie was too quiet.  He is usually on my heels every moment, no matter what I am doing; yet he was nowhere to be found.  It was then, yes, I’m THAT slow, I realized he was playing a little joke on me by unplugging my vacuum cleaner.

So, being the mom I am, I decided I would turn on the vacuum, leave it running in the corner, and then sneak back to the hall to catch the little punk in the act.  As I was creeping behind the couch, the vacuum shut off.  I heard a little giggle.  I stopped and, in a very dramatic voice, said, What in the WORLD is going on with my vacuum?!? I can’t figure this out!  At that moment the vacuum started running again.

I continued my recon mission and crawled to the edge of the hall doorway.  I very quickly poked my head around the corner, gathered data, and jerked my head back.  I sat there digesting what I had just seen.. which was nothing.  Charlie was nowhere near the outlet where the vacuum was plugged in, as a matter of fact, he wasn’t in the hall at all. The only thing in the hall was the robot army.

So I sat there for a minute and the vacuum went off again.  This time I jumped out to catch my tricky son in the act.  Imagine my shock to find, not my son, but RoboSapien V2 holding the cord.  That’s right, my son was in his room controlling his robot with the remote control.  The robot would grab the cord and walk backwards until the cord pulled from the wall.

I turned to look at my son.  He sat in his doorway smiling at me, as if to say, “You simply cannot be mad at me for doing something this brilliant, right?”  I just dropped to my knees and laughed.  I said, “Wow! You’re so smart! You tricked me with RoboSapien V2 didn’t you?”  Charlie said, “It wasn’t hard to trick you.”

In other words, I’m an idiot.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 10:18 am and is filed under Charlie's World, Robots. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.