Thumbs up for American invention....

Note to self: wrong-size vacuum bags can not be custom fitted. I would know; I tried.

I love, love, love this apartment. It's huge; it's carpeted; it's across from the park-- which has a fenced in kids play area. I do NOT love the vacuum that came with this apartment. It is a Philips Mobilo 300 Watt, and despite its cutesy appearance-- it's one of those vacuums where the actual sucking mechanism and the cord drag far behind the vacuum hose and head, following you around the house like a belly-crawling baby on wheels-- I'm pretty sure it was made in the 1980's and that you can't get proper bags for it anymore.

I only found out the vacuum needed a bag because I'm a great wife: I keep the house very, very clean. In my effort to rid the carpet of excess dirt, I noticed a foul smell creeping through the air. The stench was not unlike burning, moldy bread. I opened the vacuum bag compartment and pushed on the bag with one finger-- it was as full as a binge-eating sorority girl. This would not do. I told Andrew he had to look for a bag the next time he went to Tesco.

Well, the only vacuum bags they sell at Tesco are for vacuums made in the 1990s. We asked the apartment supervisor for her advice, and she suggested a small neighborhood store about two blocks from campus. So, today I braved the wind and rain, and-- came back sans vacuum bag. I went to the campus grocery, and again, no bag. You'd think that housing services would buy a whole truckload of these bags, mark up the price by 100%, and sell them to desperate American housewives who are eager to vacuum their campus apartments. That's what I would do. They could make a mint!

So, after I exhausted these two other avenues, Andrew, Evan, and I walked over to the Omni Shopping Centre, where there is a Giant Tesco and also a store with the sexually-connotative name of Home Base. In Giant Tesco, we found the vacuum bags next to the car care supplies. What? Who devised that shelving system?! Again, only bags for vacuums made in the 1990s.

After a coffee stop at a place selling "American" bagels, we went to Home Base (heh-heh). There, we purchased a bag of vacuum bags that looked similar to the one I'd tore from the belly of the machine at home. We walked home, and I waited with baited breath to unfold the new vacuum bag and place it in the void of my machine.

I tried it. And I tried again. Finally I told Andrew, "Bring me the scissors. The hole needs to be a little wider." After a bit of surgery, I was sure that the bag would fit. I tried vacuuming. The vacuum sucked, backfired, and started blowing out gray dust. I opened the bag compartment. After all my attention to detail, the goddamned thing had fallen off. I'd never wished for tape more feverishly than I did right then.

Andrew was able to buy the right type of bags online.

I ask: what kind of world is this that does not freely enable or encourage women to vacuum as we desire? We want all types of vacuum bags at our immediate disposal!

Reading for the week:
1. My Master's thesis, "Spare Change," can be ordered from Central Michigan University's inter-library loan. The first person to write a 750-word essay on the subject of character in "Hedvika Tells about Crossing the Equator" wins some barmbrack.

2. Joyce's Dubliners. Anyone who comes up with a legitimate-sonding literary term for the continuity of heaviness of ending in all the short stories also wins some barmbrack.

3. Nigella Lawson's Feast. I haven't bought it, but have browsed and salivated online. First to buy it and also buy a copy for me wins something other than barmbrack.

Suck it up (because my vacuum can't)-- Andrea