Monday, February 08, 2010

Hoover

Swoozy woke one bright winter's morning and stretched the sleep from her bones as she sleepily planted her feet on the carpeted floor. A peek out of her window revealed heaps of snow and an empty parking spot where her husband's car belonged, "Guess he went to work today," she sighed. Shrugging on her new favorite hoodie, Swoozy made her way to the bedroom door and the steps leading to the main floor. She hugged her sons and gave them a bunch of wet lipped kisses, their favorite kind of kisses which they promptly wiped off before she could even stand up straight.

When Swoozy reached the kitchen at last the only thing on her mind was, "Coffee." She hadn't even noticed the mysterious note left on the floor by her feet. It wasn't until she dropped the cap to the creamer and had to bend over to retrieve it that she gasped and pulled up quickly.
"What IS that?" she exclaimed as she took several quick steps backwards. At her exclamation all four boys came running to the kitchen to see what was the matter. "Stay back!" she warned.
"I don't know what that is," She said as she pointed to a furry, dirty mess on the floor.
"Did any of you boys do that?" All four boys shook their heads in disgust. She told them to go play so she could clean it up. Swoozy grabbed the broom from the corner and extended it to take a swipe of the mess when all of the sudden she heard the vacuum turn on in the other room. She ran to see what was going on, but there was the vacuum standing all alone by the wall not even plugged in. She thought she must have been hearing things so she headed back to the kitchen. She stopped short of the mess on the floor and noticed the mess wasn't just a mess, it was a message! In grey dusty hair balls it spelled out, "EMPTY ME!"
Swoozy had a sinking feeling in her stomach, for this wasn't the first time an appliance talked to her. Swoozy looked to Mrs. Refrigerator to see if this was her mischief but when she looked up she read, "Was not me!" in colored alphabet letters.
Swoozy groaned and felt another piece of her sanity slipping away. "Then who?" Swoozy asked Mrs. Refrigerator.

There, before her eyes Swoozy watched as the alphabet letters rearranged themselves to spell out, "Hoover". Swoozy slowly turned her head to where the vacuum "Hoover" stood against the wall. Sure enough she had neglected to empty the dirt compartment and dirt was spilling over the filter.
"Oh no. Oh. NO!" She swept up the dirt into the dustpan in a frenzy and spilled the contents into the trash. "This can't be happening" she mumbled to herself, "Not again, it just can't." She walked back over to the doorway and stood between the refrigerator and the vacuum, looking at both. Mrs. Refrigerator answered for her in bright pink letters, "Yes it can, it is," and beside this Mrs. Refrigerator placed the Mr. Yuk face. Apparently she liked being the only appliance to haunt Swoozy.
After Swoozy let it sink in she gave up trying to explain it all away, after all she already formed a "somewhat" healthy relationship with Mrs. Refrigerator, she had even gone so far as to ordering specially made kitchen magnets so that Mrs. Refrigerator could spell more words and use punctuation.
Swoozy threw up her arms in defeat and got to cleaning out Hoover. As she cleaned she hoped that she and Hoover would have a peaceable relationship much like the one she shared with Mrs. Refrigerator. Little did she know at the time, that Hoover was particularly picky and a bit of a neat freak. He would eventually leave many complaints all over the floor including in special hiding places like under furniture, driving Swoozy to store Hoover in a locked closet, something her husband questioned considering he had to buy and install a lock for the hallway closet. Swoozy was always pretty good at making up reasonable excuses for her strange behavior and over time she and Hoover formed a unique relationship of their own.

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