Another one bites the dust, or not.

Almost everything in my life sucks right now, except my vacuum cleaner. Just so you know. Because I am sure you were wondering, weren't you? It is due to a long series of unfortunate events, that I am suckless in the cleaning of my floors. Usually when people tell you suck, it is a bad thing, but this is not one of those times.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, well before we had kids, at least. That would be almost 18 years ago. We had the money to buy the things we needed in life. Funny how that works, you get kids and all your money just flies out the window by the buckets full.

Back to the story, right after we were married, we lived in a furnished basement apartment for the five years we were at BYU. See we liked BYU so much we hated to leave. And this apartment was something right out of the book Charly.

Water heater in the kitchen, water closet for a bathroom, and a bedroom, that's it. The good news of this place is that there was no where to go but up from there. Some people said that they had not even lived anywhere as ghetto as that, on their missions.

The bathroom ceiling was about 2 inches shorter than my husband. You could sit on the commode and touch the wall in the shower with one hand and the other wall of the bathroom with the other. Serious claustrophobia, if you know what I mean.

But the upside to this place was the price. We got what we paid for and we didn't get what we didn't pay for, if you know what I mean. Guess how much it was a month? You will never guess, except Funny Farmer, because she lived there after us. Oh and Stephanie, she lived there too. OK, I will tell you, $125 a MONTH including our heat, which in Provo is the same as gold. Can you believe it? I know I am ancient, but this was not that long ago.

I am convinced that it was the best deal in town. Great for struggling college students needing to pay tuition. And besides we lived on love and macaroni and cheese. We didn't need things like stinkin living rooms.

The point to all this ridiculous detail into the first five years of our marriage is that the place came with a vacuum. Now it may have been a vacuum that came across the plains with the pioneers, but it was a vacuum nonetheless.

So I never needed to get a vacuum. Finally, when we moved into the student housing at graduate school, the time had come. I was working and so even though we were students, no kids remember, so we still had money. And now we were paying $300 a month. The horror, I know. Tragic.

It was at this point that we bought a very nice canister Kenmore vacuum at Sears. The way that thing just followed me around, sucking up any thing on the carpet brought tears to my eyes. Of course again no kids, so not that much sucking up needed.

Fast forward 18 years and countless vacuum bags later. The sucking up still brings tears to my eyes, but they are tears of dismay and disappointment not joy and happiness . In fact it is not uncommon for my vacuum to spit at me instead of suck. That is just wrong and spiteful, to suck things up only to spit them all back out. Very insensitive.

And so even though I think I have been very faithful in following the adage to use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. The doing with out has got to end. Sometimes no amount of duct tape can beat a dead horse.

Any of you who were reading this blog last summer, know that I had every intention of buying a new vacuum at the Fourth of July sales. But that is right when Jared got sick, so it never happened. And then one thing after another, and here I am with still no vacuum.

My sister did try valiantly when she was here at the beginning of December. She went to Wal Mart and bought a vacuum. She even vacuumed my whole house. But she thought it was too heavy, especially to carry up and down the stairs, so she even more kindly took it back.

We then bought a smaller more light weight one. But that one didn't really work out either. It kind of looked like a toy and it was hard to push over the rugs on my laminate floors.

You might be reading this in horrified wonderment at how I could live for so long without a vacuum. I share your astonishment. One reason is that the first floor of my house is laminate flooring, so a broom works for cleaning purposes. The other reason, is that it has just not made it to the top of the priority list. And hey, you can't feel guilty for not vacuuming, if you don't even own a vacuum, right? Well some might, but I can't.

So at this time I bid a fond farewell to my old vacuum. Thanks for all the great cleaning memories over the past two decades. Good bye, farewell, Adios, Sionara, Adieu, parting is such sweet sorrow.

I can no longer live with your lazy ways, I need something that sucks.