1 EAGLETON NOTES: I've Lost My Vacuum Cleaner

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Wednesday 13 July 2016

I've Lost My Vacuum Cleaner

How can one lose or mislay a vacuum cleaner? Well I have done just that. For ten minutes or more I have wandered through the ten rooms in this house and have still not managed to find it. I'm getting concerned about my state of mind. Then I told myslelf it was ARADD (Age Related Attention Deficit Disorder) or, as shown in this YouTube video, which many of you will have viewed already I'm sure, Age-Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. Then I remembered that I've always displayed those symptoms: long before I was at an age where this is supposed to kick in anyway.

Whilst I was searching I was thinking about why I am here (I don't mean on this earth but in this house this morning and not working at Gaz's house). It's because of a conversation. Two people rarely have a conversation. Ask each participant for a résumé of the conversation and you will find that there were two different conversations. 

It's rather like witnesses. Every police officer and every lawyer knows that witness statements are often, perhaps usually, unreliable. 

50 years or so ago a colleague (a lawyer) drove the nose of his car slightly over the white line into the main road along which I was travelling to work. I joked with him about it when I saw him in work an hour or so later. "What colour was the car you saw?" he asked. "Green". I knew that because not only did his car often park next to mine but I had travelled in it often. "Grey" he said "See. It wasn't me you saw." Totally bemused by the fact that he didn't know the colour of his own car I popped down into the car park to check. It was grey. I learned from that that dogmatism is to be avoided at all costs when one is likely to be cross-examined.

Well that didn't help me find the vacuum cleaner but it did rather demonstrate ARADD can be applicable to writing blog posts as well. 

I've just had another look around. Still no sign of the vacuum cleaner.


37 comments:

  1. Why do you need to clean a vacuum anyway? After all, a vacuum is a space entirely devoid of matter. Are you sure you ever had a vacuum cleaner? Perhaps you only ever had a sweeping brush and dustpan.

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    1. YP I'm sure about absolutely nothing apart from the fact that I'm sure about absolutely nothing. It said it was a vacuum cleaner on the box and you know me: I believe what's written on the box.

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  2. Knowing how helpful you can be, do you happen to know someone who's vacuum cleaner has recently died?

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    1. Very kind of you to say that Mark but I hadn't actually left the house between using it and losing it.

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  3. Or have you maybe taken yours to Gaz's house to help with the work there?
    I have lost a jumper and really have no idea how that did happen. It's been a few years ago and I can only assume that I have unintentionally put it in a bag with other unwanted clothes for charity collection.
    Usually, I know exactly what is where in my flat, but that jumper simply wasn't there anymore one day when I wanted to wear it. Maybe it has joined your cleaner in the Great Vacuum.

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    1. Meike I was using it one minute and had lost it the next. It had to be in the house because I hadn't been outside and fortunately it didn't remain lost. I think your jumper may have joined the three books I 'lost' about 10 years ago.

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  4. Gaz, will have it. If things go missing ask the family.

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    1. Adrian if Gaz has it then he's got more problems than I have: he's in Hong Kong looking at dry docks.

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  5. I think that you were on the edge of having an ARADD moment and your house spirit who is quite a sharp character noticed that fact and whisked it away into his lair or as you might say "Thin air". He might return it and he might not.
    I could tell you about a whole hoard of items of mine that have gone missing over the years in such a manner, but I will refrain from doing so.
    Perhaps it is time to buy a new vacuum cleaner anyway ?

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    1. Fortunately, Heron, it turned up on a window sill in the conservatory (not a place I'm used to leaving or finding vacuum cleaners) which is a good job because it is a new one.

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    2. So your House Spirit returned it to you and I did say that he might ;-)

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    3. She's a kindly spirit Heron.

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  6. And while writing you lost the conversation thread. (Not explaining what was said to make you stay home.) Do tell us when the vacuum cleaner turns up and with what excuse for going AWOL. (Thanks for the smile.)

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    1. Monica it was a deliberate loss of thread. The vacuum cleaner offered no reason nor apology for going AWOL but has been given a stern talking too and I hope it won't happen again.

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    2. Yes, I kind of guessed that it probably was! (deliberate, I mean)

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    3. PS. After reading where the vacuum cleaner turned up, I'm more mystified than I was by its disappearance in the first place. Do you vacuum your windows? ;)

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    4. No Monica. It's a Dyson V6. It's as powerful as my huge Electrolux but is tiny and weighs just a couple of kilos. I'd taken off the long pipe with the floor cleaning head on and put a short head on for a specific job.

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  7. You've really got me curious about your vacuum cleaner. I hope you remember to tell us what happens. Yes, our perceptions are different and quite different at times.

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    1. I found it Red. It just wasn't in a place that any sensible person would leave a vacuum cleaner.

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  8. When my wife asks me if I have seen here glasses anywhere (which happens often) I always suggest the most unlikely places to look. In the oven, the fridge, under her pillow, etc. She usually finds them in her pocket, or on top of the book she was just reading. With this in mind, have you looked around the carpets?

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    1. I never lose my glasses Cro. They stay on my face unless I'm in bed. Howeve when I'm cooking, the knives I'm using frequently hide themselves just to perplex me and have some fun.

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  9. I assume it's not one of those automatic vacuum cleaners? If you pop outside, it could be sucking up half your lovely garden....unless it's made it as far as the beach.

    Graham, we all have moments like this. As for different perspectives, my time as a couples counsellor taught me more about that than anything else has. Every marriage or relationship has two completely different versions. Fascinating. Good luck with the search.

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    1. Search ended Frances. I'd left it on the window sill in the conservatory. Just where everyone leaves their vacuum cleaner.

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  10. Maybe I could help you find your vacuum cleaner if you could tell me the color of it. Oh wait, you won't be able to do that, will you? HA! Hey, I say don't worry about it, that sorry little vacuum cleaner will turn up where you least expect it. (Could you have it in your garage where you used it on your car?)

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    1. Kay you must know me well. I couldn't have told you the colour. I know that the extension pipe is a lurid purple
      colour (I'm sure Dyson have another name for it and it's the only colour available). I had been using it on the car recently (it's cordless) but on that morning I hadn't been outside the house.

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  11. Perhaps it just sucked itself up and disappeared.

    However, I use a similar excuse regarding the whereabouts of my vacuum cleaner, too. When I walk by it...I've learn to look in the other direction. You see...I never see it, so it must be lost!

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  12. The hashtag #firstworldproblems springs to mind!

    Glad you found it. Wish our vacuum cleaner would fit on a windowsill - its enormous bulk seems to get in the way wherever we put it.

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    1. Helen that's why I decided on a different approach. This cleaner is small and very powerful and cordless. You can't do a whole house in one go but it is so easy to just do a room or whatever as one feels inclined or has a spare few minutes (chance would be a fine thing for the latter). And of course you are right it's a very first world problem but then most of our problems are.

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  13. Have you looked in the fridge :)

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    1. I looked in both of them Jenny. They are full of comestibles so no room for vacuum cleaners.

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  14. Vacuum Cleaner MIA ... Did you lend it to someone? Take it out to the shed?

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    1. Carol I have a rule in life: never lend books (which I break often), false teeth (I don't have any) or vacuum cleaners.

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  15. I enjoyed reading your comments as much as your post. I'm glad you found it. I'm sure these things happen often to us. I had never heard of Age Activated Add but it makes sense. My other half has lost two camera batteries and a cap in the house somewhere.

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    1. Diane for me one of the lovely thing about blogging is the comments and the conversations and the views of other people. It's not why I started blogging (it was a diary/information source for my friends in my 'other' country of residence) but it's why I have continued blogging.

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  16. Hope you've found your vacuum cleaner by now.

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    1. Yes Virginia I couldn't have done without it for that long.

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