Things I have purchased dozens of but can never find when I need them:
1.) Toenail Clippers
2.) Cat brush
3.) Jeweler’s Screwdriver
I know when I move I am going to find a dozen of these things. My lens just fell out of my damn glasses while I was sitting here fighting the university library search engines, and, of course, my jeweler’s screwdriver is nowhere to be found. Instead, I am ruining the screw on my glasses and the blade on a kitchen knife. Did I say damnit yet?
I am blaming Tunch. I am sure you all have a list of things like this as well.
PS- My vacuum broke. Any suggestions on a replacement? Under $300.00, please.
myiq2xu
Buy one that sucks.
No, really
cleek
they all suck, at least a little.
The Other Steve
I can only recommend Dyson. All the other vacuums don’t suck.
Doubting Thomas
Oreck’s basic model is under $300 and usually comes with a cannister vac in addition to the stand up. They are light weight, work great and have the best bags – little to no dust.
Jen
Do you want the mac-daddy, no-kidding this is a damn vacuum cleaner, made in the USA, hell no this ain’t no throw-it-away when it breaks vacuum and by the way you’d better be able to bench a few ’cause this sucker is carved out of a solid block of steel? A used Kirby.
myiq2xu
Come on John, admit you were looking at some really good porn and your eyes popped out of your head, knocking out one of your lenses.
Happens to me at least 2-3 times a week.
Dreggas
I woke up this morning and my cat had decided my contact case did not belong in the bathroom on the counter, but rather in the middle of the living room to be batted around…
Ron Beasley
Vacuum – SIMPLICTY – lightweight, great quality, inexpensive filters and MADE IN AMERICA.
akaoni
Have you checked the vacuum for toenail clippers, cat brush, and/or jeweler’s screwdriver? That might kill two birds with one stone…
Cassidy
Kirby…will never have to buy another vacuum.
cleek
my Dyson sucks pretty well. but, it’s a bit of a PITA on stairs because the brush stops spinning when the angle between the handle and the base is near 90 deg (ie, where it would be if you parked it do screw around with the attachments).
Pb
These Vacuums Suck. And, despite what Glenn Beck may tell you, nothing sucks like a Hoover!
Badtux
While my cats have managed to haul socks and watches under my bed to be discovered at a later date, I’ve never known a cat to care about a jeweler’s screwdriver. I have several screwdriver sets that I bought over the years and actually know where one is (!!!), but that is only because I made a place in a drawer specifically for this set and return it to said place immediately after using it. And now that I say that, I’ll go to that drawer and it won’t be there. I blame poltergeists, myself. My apartment is haunted by the spirits of the drunken Mexicans who drank their lunches during its construction, whether we are talking about the uneven walls or the smell of beer urine that emits from said walls during times of high humidity. My suspicion is that the spirits’ fumes are enough to dissolve screwdrivers and the plastic case they came in… (And before you say the obvious — “move” — any recently-built apartment in the Silicon Valley was built by drunken Mexicans supervised by people who didn’t give a crap because they got paid the same no matter how shabby the work, these places were just thrown up in a frenzy during the boom, and older apartments don’t have air conditioning because you didn’t need air conditioning here before global warming resulted in summers with 90+F heat).
Zifnab
Where do you get your porn?
A really tidy girlfriend?
Emma Anne
Nail files. I have bought at least ten, and I know where one is. Maybe.
I always check Consumer Reports when I am going to buy something like a vacuum.
myiq2xu
I’ll bet you have no problem finding them when you’re looking for something else though.
I usually find the Phillips screwdrivers (all sizes) when I need a standard, and vice-versa.
myiq2xu
At the getting place.
Ninerdave
Or how about just a girlfriend (paid or not) in general.
Dreggas
Fixed.
Badtux
Oh yeah, a vacuum. My Hoover Wind Tunnel sucks like a demon. I vacuumed my carpets with my old vacuum cleaner, then vacuumed it with the Hoover. The Hoover picked up a whole canister full of cat hair and crap that the old vacuum had weakly passed over. Oh, the filter is washable, something they won’t tell you — when it gets clogged and won’t tap out anymore, just take it out, put it in the sink with a couple drops of dishwashing detergent, swish it around while ruffling its ridges, then rinse it off, shake it off, and let it dry. It’ll work good as new. But I only have to do that once every six months or so.
lutton
Roomba!
Delia
A) I’ve had a Hoover, the generation before the Windtunnel, for about eight years, the kind that uses the super-allergenic dustbags. It’s great. The only trouble I’ve had is when I’ve run over the cord. I’ve wrapped electrical tape around the damage.
B) Take your glasses to the optical shop where you got them. Ask them to tighten the screws and put some Lock-tite (or whatever-the-hell-it-is) on the trouble spots. Also, the screws tend to loosen on the lens opposite the hand you use to take your glasses on and off. I know. From bitter experience. So you have to try to retrain yourself to use both hands for this operation.
Dreggas
Yeah, ours even had the attachments to allow you to paint your house with it.
Dennis - SGMM
OT, but get a load of this:
Linky
Bombadil
I believe that would also work on the really tidy girlfriend.
ThymeZone
Things I buy and then lose forever:
Double stick tape.
Tweezers.
Good scissors.
Good work gloves.
Paint rollers.
Spackle.
padlocks (the keys to them disappear)
Larv
I don’t vacuum enough to have an opinion on those, but about the jewelers screwdrivers: Get a Leatherman Squirt or similar micro-multitool and put it on your keychain. The mini flathead on it isn’t as good as a decent jeweler’s screwdriver, but it’s far better than a butter knife. I have a two-year old niece who likes nothing more than grabbing my glasses off my face and subjecting them to the kind of abuse only a two-year old can dish out, so I have to replace lenses fairly often. The pliers are handy for bending parts back into place, too. The other tools are even occasionally pretty handy for non-toddler related repairs.
cleek
this is due to the phillips-standard duality of screwdrivers. you can desire a phillips or a standard, but the act of desiring one or the other will cause all screwdrivers of that type in your local region to slip out of the visible world – though this is modulated by random quantum-level fluctuations in the state of each individual screwdriver. a de Broglie’s screwdriver will behave the way you want, with respect to head type, but becomes useless if there is more than one screw in the room.
canuckistani
You can use a shop-vac in the house too, as long as your carpets are well nailed down and the cat stays away.
Jen
One of the cool things about Kirbys is that no matter how new it is, it still looks like it was made in 1955. Another cool thing is that if you get over that dislike of kids and have a child with a mechanical bent (my son can watch a tennis machine for 45 minutes), they will flip over the Kirby. Also they are just fantastic vacuums. Mitigating against them is that Cassidy has chimed in in their favor. I hope that you now have all the information you need.
I buy all the time, rulers, calculators, scotch and packing tape, and scissors. I have no freakin’ idea where these things go. It’s like I have a house full of scrapbooking nocturnal leprechauns.
myiq2xu
I guess I owe my kids an apology – they were telling the truth after all.
RSA
This page lists the top three vacuums as ranked by Consumer Reports as follows: Kenmore (Sears) Progressive with Direct Drive 35922; Hoover WindTunnel 2 U8311-900; Kenmore (Sears) Progressive with Direct Drive 36932. We’ve got either the first or the third, I think, and it works fine.
David
Dyson. Nothing else will do. The 18-cyclone Slim will set you back about $460 but that’s better than buying a $300 vacuum now and another one in June ’09
Svensker
I was right with ya, until that last sentence…
Vacuum cleaner — Eureka The Boss. Very versatile, can switch from roll bar to wand with one click, good suction. Good epinion rating, too.
Dreggas
“In this time a friend shall lose his friends hammer and the children will not know where lyeth those little things that their father had put there only the night before…”
– Prophet, Monty Python’s Life Of Brian.
The Other Steve
We keep the bathroom doors shut. Decided we were tired of cleaning cat hair from everything in there.
My cats like pens. They’ll grab them off the desk and bat them around.
I’m serious about the Dyson. There isn’t a better vacuum made. Kirby used to be good, same with Oreck, but Dyson blew them all away. Hoover, etc. have spent the past 10 years or so trying to copy the Dyson design and thus far failing because they keep focusing on creating a design that requires you to buy a filter or bag or something.
As for screwdrivers and such. My grandfather always had a drawer in the kitchen where you tossed these things. Sure it was a mess, and maybe it took you a while to find it, but it was in that drawer. I actually have a chest I bought with drawers(I think it was a lingerie chest) that I use to just toss stuff. I’ve got spare buttons, hooks to hang pictures, dice, playing cards, what have you in there. Very convenient.
Carnacki
The Doughy Pantload vacuum cleaner sucks the most.
Jen
If you want to research Consumer Reports but don’t have a subscription, see if your public or university library does. An online subscription, I mean. They pay a lot of money to subscribe to all kinds of things, and it doesn’t occur to a lot of people to go that route. You probably thought of that, though.
The Other Steve
Fun story. Whenever we bring out the vacuum cleaner, our dog comes running. She could care less about the vacuum. What she finds fun is that whenever we vacuum, the cats start running and she loves to chase the cats.
I once made the mistake of leaving the closet door open while cleaning, and one of the cats had run into the closet to hide while I was vacuuming. So then when I went to vacuum the closet I found out that a cat can in fact climb up clothes hanging in the closet to get to the top shelf if they are desperate enough.
myiq2xu
I think I have the keys over here. I have keys to cars and locks I’ve never owned.
I have about 20 battery chargers to cell phones and I don’t even own one. I also have owners manuals and warranty cards on things I got rid of over 10 years ago.
Hypatia
Kirby, Dyson or Electrolux in that order. You’ll likely cough up more than $300 but it’s worth it.
UnkyT
If I buy a good pen I will lose it the second I walk out of the store.
FearItself
The problem with having “a jeweler’s screwdriver” is that it’s so small it inevitably gets lost. I recommend buying a whole set of them, with relatively big handles, that live together in a shared case. I got a Craftsman set at Sears for like $20. The box, about as big as a small book, takes up enough room that they don’t disappear.
I used to lose Flash memory drives for the same reason, until I made one big enough by attaching a long, brightly-colored lanyard to it. Now it’s big enough that I can see it, so I remember to unplug it and take it with me.
Basically, I’m fighting a rear-guard action against the age of miniaturization. This is why I can never buy an iPod.
Oh, and I just bought a basic Hoover “Widepath” upright vacuum–a Consumer Reports “Best Buy.” It seems to work pretty well (I’ve only used it once), and was only about 80 bucks.
ThymeZone
I almost never buy things that are recommended by CR just for that reason. As a car nut, I’ve noticed over the years that CR is often just, to put it gently, full of shit. And I think that probably applies to other products as well.
But anyway, the best vaccum cleaner I have ever used, and maybe the best household appliance I have ever used, is the Dyson Animal.
It’s just a head shaker. The suction and cleaning power are absolutely unmatched. It’s quiet. It’s maneuverable. It doesn’t lose suction as it fills up with the great heaps of animal hair and other crap that it pulls out of your floor. It empties in about ten seconds, no handling of anything dirty. No bag, nothing to clean. I has the best accessory setup I have ever seen. It is engineered for easy and convenient use at every detail.
The first time I tried it, I realized that every other vacuum cleaner I had ever used was just a piece of crap. Do yourself a favor, and get the best.
Punchy
Girlfriends cost north of $3C, but they’ll do all the cleaning for you if you dont. Just meet a clean freak and get a good set of earplugs.
John S.
I just bought a Dyson Slim, and it is a wonderful vacuum. It cost about $400, but it is worth it (you can buy it online from Linens n’ Things or Bed Bath & Beyond and use their 20% off a single item discount to get it for that price).
I figured I’ve spent about $80 per year on shitty vacuums. The Dyson is guaranteed for 5, so it really works out to be the same, except that it works so much better.
Get a Dyson, John. You won’t be sorry.
UnkyT
I have a Kirby, very nice vacuum, but quite expensive. The only thing that will make it worth the money to me is if it lasts 20 years, which I’ve heard should be expected.
Punchy
i guess i should read the comments first to avoid being like the 10th person to try the witty “girlfriend” response…
Len
Thank you for reminding me that I need to clip my toenails. (Actually, I am reminded almost nightly, but it seems to carry more weight coming from you.)
RSA
I think that’s true for a lot of products, in particular those that a group of people have a more than passing interest (and expertise) in: cars, stereo equipment, etc. And their test procedures are pretty ad hoc. But for some stuff (vacuum cleaners and deck stains) I’ve been satisfied with what I’ve gotten following their commie recommendations.
Conservatively Liberal
If you had a Republican party HQ nearby, you could run a hose from there to your house. You have to admit, the Repubs suck more than anything in existence. If a Democratic party HQ is nearby, it will work almost as good but it will not lift the heavy stuff.
If not the above, Hoover is my favorite. Ours is like 15 years old now and still cleaning like a champ. Just maintain it properly and it will run almost forever.
Andrew
Cosigned x1000000000.
I don’t understand why people would buy anything else. It even entertains my cat.
ThymeZone
I read CR for information, and it’s part of the info mix, but they get carried away with things they like.
Also, in the world of cars, they rely heavily on the use of self-selected polling of car owners to determine reliability, which is just nonsensical. The only people who really know what the reliability of particular cars is are the manufacturers who keep records on the repairs of their cars … and they are not talking, those are closely guarded secrets.
What CR proves is that Honda owners, who pay more for a Honda than an equivalent product would cost, self select for a poll and then report that their cars are more reliable than …. you know, other cars. Gosh, what a surprise.
I happen to be a Honda owner, so put that down for the record. But I was also a Ford Focus owner, and watched in horror as the auto press trashed the Focus for having a couple recalls its first year out of the box. With a little research, I found that the vaunted Civic also had recalls, but the car press ignored them. My own almost-new Civic has had two recalls already.
Is the Civic better than the Focus? Meh, yeah, in some subtle ways. Actually, it’s just a personal preference thing for me. Reliability wise, the Focus was bulletproof. Never had a problem with it.
Anyway, that’s just one reason why I take CR with a grain of salt. Another is that they make subjective judgements and pass them off as objective. For example, they just love the plastics that Toyota uses in their car interiors. I hate them. I don’t even like the smell of them. So, that’s a personal thing. But I wouldn’t try to tell America that a Ford is a better car than a Toyota because I like the plastic better. CR does that kind of thing, and if they would just admit that they are just another opinion magazine, no better than Car and Driver or Motor Trend, which are also totally subjective despite claims to the contrary, then I would like them better. But they pretend to be above the common rabble, and they really aren’t. All their fancy “tests” not withstanding.
ET
They along with pen caps and socks are all in the Department of Lost (see old TV show “Eerie, Indiana”).
Haltelcere
I used to work for a company that manufactured central vacuums (among other things). Typical tradeshow floor greeting:
“How’s business?”
“It sucks, but is picking up.”
For a cheap vacuum, go with whatever anyone else said above. Unfortunately all uprights, not matter what the advertisers say, have degraded performance after the fist bag change / cleanout.
For a vacuum that’ll constantly suck the carpet off the floor for years on end, break down and get a central vacuum installed in your house. Yea, it costs more, but you shouldn’t have to buy another vacuum for at least 10 to 20 years depending on usage (10-year warranty is standard on the better units), it will be more powerful (air-watts is the proper rating) than any upright, you can actually hear the phone ring when you are using it, and you won’t have that annoyingly fine blow-by dust filter back down on everything when you are finished.
Brachiator
Seems to me that both Consumer Reports and Consumer Guides magazines rated vacuum cleaners recently, and their annual buying guides might still be around at bookstores, or at the library. In the past, I seem to recall that a Hoover WindTunnel model (900?) rated fairly highly.
Slate magazine rated vacuums not too long ago (“Suck It! Suck It Good! Suck It All, Baby! Which vacuum cleaner is best?”) back in August 2003. I apologize if I didn’t get the link thing right, but here is the reference for it.
By the way, they liked the following models best of all: Roomba Intelligent Floor Vac, Hoover Windtunnel Bagless Canister, and (number 1) the Dyson DC07.
http://www.slate.com/id/2086689/
Kirk Spencer
re CR – I tend to use it to eliminate lemons. As others have noted, “best” doesn’t always seem to match my experience. “Worst,” on the other hand, always seems to have rock-solid data.
re Vacuum cleaners – not one person has asked you some important questions. Not least is how much carpet needs vacuumed, but there’s also the question of whether you PREFER canister or upright. Oh, and how deep is the pile. Pay attention to needs…
That said, I’ll raise a personal consideration – and say that of the dozen vacuums I’ve used in the past decade (no Dysons, but two Kirbys in there) I’ve come to despise anything with a beater brush. My wife and daughter have long hair, and I’ve more than a couple of pets. Between all this and normal shedding I get to deal with cleaning hair off beater brushes WAAAAY too often. If I clean them every couple of uses I don’t have to replace the belts that drive them. However, beater brushes help vacuums be much more effective, so pretty much all of the vacuums that meet my pile/area needs have them. Thus one of the really important issues for me revolve around getting to, cleaning, and replacing that brush. The cost of the (inevitably needed) replacement belts comes into play as well.
Darkness
That’s funny, I always lose the cats’ toenail clipper.
How can you lose a cat brush? I could find ours blindfolded, just by the urge to sneeze.
I have never seen the cats panic so bad as when we had a Roomba. It sorta worked. Funny thing is, it cleaned the center of the floor far better than a human, but it couldn’t get to all the corners of the room. You basically have to furnish the room specifically for the Roomba (legs on tables far apart and not sitting close to one another, or sitting right together.
I’m bookmarking this thread because our vacuum is trying to die. I’ve been using the old dirt devil, which doesn’t suck (I mean that in a bad way) but it doesn’t weigh anything which is a plus for us geezer wannabes.
ChristieS
I bought my current vacuum, a Kirby, in 1986. Other than having to replace a worn out brush and some extender attachments (which aren’t quite as indestructible as advertised), I haven’t had a moment’s problem with it. Heh…and the really cool accessory pack is still awesome: self-cleaning hand sander, carpet shampooer, floor waxer…I love them all.
Lol…It took me 5 years to pay it off in monthly installments, but I believe it has more than paid for itself.
canuckistani
You can set up a pretty good wind tunnel effect between the two, since the R’s suck and the D’s blow.
Cain
I got a Dyson too. It kicks ass. Plus you don’t have to buy a bag or anything else. A used kirby would work too. I didn’t go with the Kirby as I didn’t want to pay 600 bucks for it. I paid 450 for my Dyson and I’ve been happy with it. It’s an amazing piece of engineering..
cain
Mark L
Do not buy the Dyson for two reasons.
1. No bag. Non hygenic.
Unless you clean the catch out after every use with bleach it will become a germ pool. Hospitals may not use these types of vacuums (not just the Dyson).
2. Plastic
Why is the Kriby still usable? Metal construction
I have a Panasonic. The only part that has broken in 4yrs is one of the plastic attachment holders.
Definitely less than $300.00
The dyson is not his first go ’round either. just the one with the most advertising money
BuzzillionsEmma
You can find pretty hard to find things on Buzzillions.com, and every product listed has consumer reviews. We gather reviews from our clients which range from ConsumerReviews to Rei.com to Staples.com. This way, you can find highly rated products (reviews written by verified buyers so it’s no scam)and compare prices to find the best deal.
Not only that, you can find the vacuum cleaner that’s best for your needs. So for example, if you have hardwood floors and you’re a pet owner, you can narrow down your search to other people who have bought and reviewed vacuum cleaners with the same needs.
I work with Buzzillions.com, and we get a ton of vacuum cleaner reviews everyday: http://www.buzzillions.com/vacuum-cleaners-reviews/
myiq2xu
I have a drawer just for unmatched socks. When I’m putting laundry away and I end up with one or two mismatched leftovers, I toss them in. Periodically I go throught it, but rarely find any matches. I blame the dryer demons.
My mom used to have a big, mean tomcat. When he did something to piss her off (like claw the furniture or attack her pantyhose on the drying rack) she would get out her vacumn and chase him around with it.
Nick
Thirded!
I took a chance on this offer on Buy.com for $120.69, shipped, and was amazed at that it did in my girlfriend’s apartment with two cats and wall-to-wall carpeting. I still would recommend a normal vacuum for deeper carpet cleaning, and for vacuuming drapery and furniture and stairs, but running the Roomba everyday really helped with controlling the cat hair pollution at her place. All she has to do is spend a minute everyday emtying out the bin and shaking out the filter, then five minutes once a week clearing out the rollers.
shortstop
If those Dysons weren’t good, Sting wouldn’t be doing their commercials.
I have like 10 bags of shims in various secret places around the house. But next time I need one it’s off to the hardware store with me. If I could find my current supply, I could secure like 100 bookcases and level a few dozen tables to boot.
cmoreNC
Missing items like toenail clippers and jewler’s scredriverwill stay put if you’ll buy a small rubbermaid container for your manicure/small tools set, and always put the clippers back in the container when done.
Likewise, things like car keys and cat brushes can be tamed by selecting one certain spot where they go back, in the case of car keys immediately when you walk in the door, in the case of cat brushes immediately when you’re done brushing kitty. For keys, a particular bowl on a surface within a few steps of where you walk in (kitchen counter, table by the front door). For kitty brush, behind a certain pot or item in your living room or den. Make yourself get the habit of ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS keeping this routine.
I used to be a klutz about misplacing things like my keys, my wallet, or small tools UNTIL I finally realized that life is so much simpler and less aggravating to become rigidly disciplined about these few things – gives my artistic, free spritied, anarchic side that much more time and freedom to enjoy itself unburdened by the aggravation of having to track missing important items down all the time.
uncle rameau
miele.
myiq2xu
If we were anal retentive we might do that. I prefer to play treasure hunter every time I want something. I lose stuff just sitting at my desk, haven’t gone anywhere, nobody else around.
Anne Laurie
I think WEIGHT is a greatly under-considered factor when rating vacuums. Unless you’re the sort of person who power-lifts for fun, the less stress a vacuum puts on your body, the less you’ll avoid taking the vacuum out, and of course vacuuming more often increases the “cleaning power” of whatever suckee-stick you’re using. But if you’ve always wrestled with a 20lb. steel octopus, you don’t realize how much of your reluctance to vacuum is your middle-aged joints complaining until *after* you’ve switched to something lighter. Since our 900-square-foot house is on four levels, I may be more sensitive to this than most. One more factor to consider, anyway.
Because we will always have cats & longhaired dogs, we’re replacing wall-to-wall with hardfinish as we can afford it. Our current vacuum cleaner is a secondhand Oreck compact, which has been perfect for OUR needs. It’s not too heavy to manipulate, it’s comparatively quiet, the bag (though small) is very easy & clean to change, and it sucks everything from pet hair to loose kibble with great efficiency. If it were up to my Spousal Unit, we’d have a shop vac on every level, but the problem with shop vacs is that they are entirely TOO efficient when it comes to cat toys, nail clippers, loose earrings, small electronic bits, holiday ornaments, legos, doll shoes, and the other detritus of modern American family living.
The other under-rated cleaning tool for a pet-friendly environment is the Swiffer sweeper, the plain wet-pad-on-a-broomstick version. It won’t help with carpets, of course, but the disposable pads remove a LOT of dander, hair, and pollen as well as feetprints & nose smudges, and they’re safe on wood floors as well as vinyl & tile.
What vanishes around this house are extension cords. The Spousal Unit buys another extension cord approximately every three weeks, he’s been doing this for the 15 years we’ve been in this house, and yet whenever we need an extension cord for the holiday lights or his newest shop vac, there are *no* extension cords to be found. Of course during the recent garage clean-out I filled an entire 30-gallon rubbermaid tub with extension cords… but the Spousal Unit promptly lost the *tub*.
Krista
I’ve heard good things about the miele vaccuums. Mind you, right now we’re in a small apartment with laminate flooring, so my good old Oskar broom does the job just fine (with my Dirt Devil hand vac for the couch). But when we build the house, it’ll definitely be central vac.
What do I tend to misplace? Ponytail elastics. Lip balm (never the yucky greasy stuff that I buy on impulse, oh no — I usually misplace my good Elizabeth Arden stuff). Scotch tape. We’re missing three copies of the house plans right now, but I’m sure they’ll turn up.
Eric
I sold Kirby vacuums the summer of ’62. The price for the works was $720. You could buy a late-model used car for that kind of money. My trainer was a guy who bragged he was last in his class in high school and next to last in the Corps. He gave me an 11-page script to memorize. It was his pitch, on paper. Then he took me on two calls: in a $100,000 home (1962 price), and in a rental apartment with wallpaper peeling off. He closed them both. He made it look easy.
I was good. I sold. The trick was to go head-to-head with their cleaner. If it was anything but an upright Hoover, game over before it started. An Electrolux? Dead meat. The dirt I pulled would make people turn green.
One family came crying for their money back. Kirby Inc: no way. Don’t worry, they said, we have people who handle this sort of thing. I did the refund. Then I drove off with a demo in my trunk for two weeks in Seaside Heights. When I got back Kirby was unhappy but had not called the cops on me. I gave them their machine and went back to school. The Kirby my folks bought (price minus my commission, of course) ran until they were too old to use it. My mother always had trouble pushing it because it was so powerful. Another reason my father and I never got along.
As for today’s cleaners, check Consumer Reports–CR is will suggest a Best Buy well under $300. It won’t be an overrated Oreck or Dyson at any price.
Tax Analyst
In which case you really have little need for vacuum cleaners or nail clippers or glasses, unless you really can’t see the porn without them, even if you squint.
You just don’t have the extra time to fool with all that extraneous crap like vacuuming.
Hmmm…you MIGHT have to clip those nails now and then to prevent serious penile damage.
Tax Analyst
I used to get all bummed out about misplacing all of these items. However, since they opened up those 99Cent stores I don’t trip on it too much anymore. If I ever found all of the ones I’ve bought I could probably open up my own 99Cent store…I’d have about enough inventory.
Krista
That just gave me a serious fit of the giggles.
Tax Analyst
Yeah, I finally reached the point about a year ago where my keys, wallet, sunglasses, work pass-keycard, some various music CD’s and anything else I need to leave the house are always in one place…elegantly placed in a broken dust pan sitting on a table next to the front door. If I want or need to take anything to work with me in the morning I put it down in my car the night before (except perishable foods, of course). And you should see all the crap I bring to work with me everyday…just in case, you know.
I come to the conclusion I REQUIRE clutter in order to function. It’s so bad my boss (another ‘clutter-bug’) had made it a point to allow me an exception to the some otherwise enforced “neatness” policies (she makes sure to point out my cube-hovel to the Seasonal Temps on their Orientation Tour each November – as an example of “What’s NOT allowed”). I get a full week advance reminder before our Customer Open House every year so I can put all my crap somewhere else for a few days – boxed up in the warehouse portion of our building. At that point I actually DO throw out a lot of things, but any improvement is only temporary.
LiberalTarian
No, no help with the vacuum and toenail clippers, but if you buy a set of jewelers drivers then they are in a box that is harder to lose.
And, I use Web of Knowledge (Sci Citation Index) for my papers database, which is much easier than the UC lib searches. Also, Endnote has a search function that you can link to your university’s database.
I miss good ol’ telnet Melvyl. Good luck with that.
andante
May I add my professional office cleaner’s advice to look at the Oreck 8 pound job? Yeah, that’s one of my part-time, no-benefits jobs.
Get the little portable cannister, too – if you order online, you can get a really good deal on both. When you’ve got a lot to vacuum, the lighter weight is very welcome and it works quite well. When you have to get in tight places, it’s a bit narrower to make it easier to get through close spaces without lifting the whole thing. It can get under the tiniest spots (watch out, kitty under the bed!).
Lightweight, does the job. The little cannister vac is really handy, too, and comes with a bunch of attachments.
Chuck Butcher
My wife has The Boss by Eureka, she likes it, better than her ’95 Kirby self propelled. $90 approx, 1 year old. I don’t know anything, except the Kirby was damn expensive, ate belts and rollers and weighed 8 tons.
Some household appliances I am not allowed to operate, like the vacume, dishwasher, or cooking appliances of any sort. I was a grown bachelor for 18 years and quite capable, at least until my wife decided I wasn’t.
On the other hand I lose my mind when my wife touches a construction tool, she is very much not qualified.
Mr Furious
I’m a big fan of our Kenmore canister vacuum. It’s about seven years old, and never had a problem. HEPA bags, plenty of attachments, etc. Multiple dogs and kids, and it does the job.
They’re on sale this week at Sears. Not sure exactly which current one is comparable, they’ve changed slightly since we got ours (ours is a Kenmore Progressive, 12-amp)
Tax Analyst
Wanna come and clean up my desk some day? I’ll double your benefits.
fcc
Not to be old fashioned, but fix it. Get parts here: http://www.vacuum-depot.com/
Works for me…
fcc