Dust Wrangler

Oh, great bagless vacuum cleaner, how you challenge me!?  You are my tornado of cleaning happiness.  Every domestic goddess will profess to having a favored chore, one that they actual get glee from.

For me, it's vacuuming.  The anti-thesis would be laundry, how I loath laundry.

Maybe it's the purr of the machine that I find so calming.  Or the idea that in thirty minutes of my time I have cleaned almost 1800 square feet of living space.  Think about this.  You can spend thirty minutes scrubbing your shower grout and have very little to show for the effort.  A broken nail, hands that smell like Clorox, and a toothbrush formed in the 'splech' formation after being smashed into crevices.

The canister must be filled with debris and dust, kitty furr and dust, dried bits of food and dust.  Did I mention the dust here in California?  A veritable dirt devil blows in my open windows about every three days.  It's a catch twenty two living out here on the edge of the desert and mountains.  Great weather equals shutters thrown open to the sun and breeze.  Eh....Georgia had it's pollen too I guess.

Is it just me or is the vortex of yuck being suctioned up just mesmerizing?   I vacillate between feeling victorious over the grime and disgusted that it fills my lungs.  Granted, I'm not just picking up dust.

There is the occasional Barbie shoe or light bright that finds itself getting a vacuum swirly.  I've long past the point of caring to extract these items.  Just like a pretzel, so dies the Lego that stabbed me in the foot at midnight.  The Lego was asking for it.

The kids know mommy is on a mission when I turn the machine one.  The living room will be cleared like a tornado ripping through the prairie.  Declarations of 'move it or mommy sucks it up'' are made as a warning before everything is wisked away to the Land of Fuzz and Dust.

I am ruthless, even Nora's Strawberry Shortcake swimsuit met it's demise when the brush snared a strap and shredded it.  The suit had to die as a warning.

Nothing motivates kids to clean better than recalling the wreckage of toys.

If only I could find a way to intimidate dust.