Strugglebucket vs. Supervac

Now that the top floor of our house is all shiny and new, Dad has bought a similarly shiny-and-new vacuum, of which I have already made an enemy. It's too small and see-through and has too many moving and separable parts. For example, I needed to clean out some drawers (I'm finally turning my "bookshelf" into a dresser again) so I tentatively approached this new vacuum in the hopes of finding it even mildly Strugglebucket-compatible. It fell apart into three pieces the moment I picked it up, which clattered across Dad's new hardwood floor and brought him running.  I couldn't tell if he was more panicked about me scuffing the floor or destroying the vacuum.

As it turns out, the vacuum is supposed to fall apart--er, come apart--that easily, it's much easier to clean that way, you see.  Easier to clean the vacuum itself, I mean, not clean anything else.  It makes that part much more difficult.

The actual working/motored/whatever/clearly-I-don't-really-know-how-this-works section is designed to come free of the handle of the vacuum-proper so you can use it in a more dust-bustery fashion.  Well, a dust-buster with a hose, which has both advantages and disadvantages.

First of all, what we will now call the "engine" (previously "working/motored/etc.") comes easily away from the vacuum handle, as it is held there by only a few pegs and a single clasp.  Undo the clasp and you can lift it from the pegs as though it were flinging itself into your hands.  Which is exactly what happens if you try to use it whilst on the handle and have forgotten to redo the clasp again.

Anyway, next you must free the hose from the vacuum handle, which is the only part of this damned machine that is held together securely enough to keep from falling apart and is therefore impossible to pull loose when you want it to do so.  For me it takes at least three attempts to pull the hose free by way of two small, handy tabs that do nothing at all.

I'll try once, growling through my teeth, until my fingers hurt from trying to get my fingernails under the handy tabs that do nothing at all.  Then I take a break and watch a few minutes of, say, Wallace and Gromit (recently, anyway).

My second attempt will be just trying to wiggle the end of the hose furiously enough to free it without pulling the actual flexible part of the hose apart from the plastic bit at the end that attaches it to everything else.  This futile exercise will end in an actual scream, and Dad will shout from his office to ask what's wrong, and I will lie about everything being fine.  More Wallace and Gromit.

Finally, the third time, I will be sitting on the floor, bracing the mouth of the vacuum with my feet and yanking repeatedly on the plastic bit at the end of the hose, screaming all the while.  Dad will come out to investigate, sigh heavily, and reach down to the handy tabs that do nothing at all and, by way of some black magic for which he's traded his soul, the hose will come free.

So in this first instance, I grumbled my thanks and trudged down the hall to my room.  I plugged in the cord and then puzzled for a few minutes over which direction I am supposed to hold the engine; the hose comes out at a right-angle from one end and either way the handle's uncomfortable so it's really anyone's guess.  Eventually I decided on the direction that I thought would give me the most reach with the hose, though that did put the power button on the other end and out of thumb's reach, which is what you'd expect from a hand-held vacuum, don't you think?  Anyway, I used my other hand, still holding the hose (and its single, useless attachment--more on that later), and turned on the vacuum.

I'm going to assume here that you've all seen the Disney movie "Wall-e" because if not, you have not yet lived. Well, it's super-cute anyway, and at one point the puppy-sized main character finds a fire extinguisher and presses the button with the unexpected result of being propelled around all over the place from the force of the spray.

My experience here was exactly the opposite.  The vacuum immediately seized both my hair and a rather heavy leather belt hanging in my closet.  I shouted in alarm and dropped the hose so I could turn off the engine with the free hand, but the hose didn't drop.  It held itself aloft by way of inhalation of my hair, and my cry of alarm turned into a scream and Dad came running as I finally managed to kill the power. I pulled my hair free again and the engine fell apart in my hands.

Instead of sharing my horror and alarm at this unprovoked attack on my person, like any good father should, Dad said, excitedly, "Isn't that amazing suction?"  I glared at him until he left the room.  And then pulled my hair up into a bun.

I would like to take a moment now to discuss the aforementioned single useless attachment.  It was, no doubt, a clever idea that just utterly failed in execution.  Instead of having two standard attachments, where one is a flat nozzle and the other has a brush nozzle, this one is designed to be both at once.  With the unfortunate result of being neither.

The brush-bit of the attachment is on a piece of plastic sheathing around the regular flat nozzle, which can be retracted to leave just the flat nozzle.  Except the damn brush-bit never stays in place when retracted (due, no doubt, to more handy tabs that do nothing at all), so even when I got the damn thing working I had to turn off the engine every few minutes pull the brush-bit out of the way.  I turn it off, obviously, because I sure as hell am not putting my fingers anywhere near the nozzle while it's at full suction.

After one of these instances fiddling with the brush-bit, I was so annoyed with the attachment that I forgot that the power button was at the counterintuitive end of the handle.  Reflexively, I pressed my thumb where I expected the power to be.  As it turns out, there is a button there, and upon pushing it the entire engine exploded in filth as I inadvertently released the dirt trap.

It was at this point that I actually threw the component parts of the vacuum across the room in a dust-covered berserker rage, all of which survived both the impact with the wall and the subsequent fall to the floor, which I won't deny was a little disappointing.  I managed to put the engine back together, secure it on the handle, replace the end of the hose to the vacuum-proper, and coil up the power cord, before shoving the whole thing unceremoniously into the hall closet, where I intend to never touch it again.

I dug up the old (and what shall henceforth be known as the "nice") vacuum, cleaned up the new ("evil") vacuum's mess, and eventually succeeded in cleaning out the dresser in an ordeal that took easily four times as long any vacuuming chore ever should.

In one last attempt to reclaim a small amount of my dignity, by way of emphasizing other people's Struggles, I want to point out that the first thing Dad did with the new vacuum was to break the plastic bit that keeps the middle of the hose from falling off the vacuum handle while in regular, non-dustbustering mode.  Thanks to him, you have to sort of hold it together with one hand/foot/knee while vacuuming and then wrap it up in place with the cord when you put it away.

And now I can't think of a concise, clever way to end this post, so please forgive me for what follows.

This vacuum sucks.