Sucker

As a student of design, living in my first non-parental home, I did not own a vacuum-cleaner. I could have, but as a subscriber to “Design” magazine I was aware that somewhere in the near future would be a creation of such beauty, such clear perspex, such pinkness-with-bright-green-hoses, that I was prepared to live with only a dustpan-and-brush combo until this work of art reached the retail market.

It was only after a burglary at my second non-parental home necessitated the purchase of a beige ovum, complete with single-use yellow paper bag, in order to suck shattered glass from the gaps between bare shrunken Victorian floorboards that I finally owned a vacuum-cleaner.

Happily, before relocating to my third non-parental home, this time in Greece, Dyson had finally hit the retail market and it was with such joy that I purchased my own green-and-purple sucker; complete with every imaginable attachment. There were specialist tools for curtains, computers, mattresses, bookshelves, pet-hairs. I bought the lot!

It was the only possession which suffered damage by our shippers, and was soon irreparably fucked by Spouse's insistence that of course it could be used for cement powder.

Fast-forward fifteen years and I now inhabit such a tiny flat with mostly hard-surface flooring and next to no storage space at all, that a vacuum-cleaner seemed as preposterous as garden gnomes or a home cinema. Even with a persistent post-apocalyptic rain of toxic pigeon-dust - still a dustpan-and-brush combo suited me well enough.
 
Today, my first leisurely sun-filled morning at home in weeks and months – certainly the first since the pigeon-eviction, I looked about my space and gradually came to think that a small portable sucker – one that was little enough to reach tiny corners, yet light enough to reach the ceiling, small enough to store and yet not quite a car-valet tool to be plugged into a car battery, but with a long-enough supply cable to be plugged into a regular household power supply socket and still reach . . . That'd be nice.

With nothing better to do, I took a stroll up and down Chatham High Street. I like to wander up and down, popping in and out of the profusion of charity shops, just in case something grabs my fancy.

Jackpot! There, without looking too hard, was the perfect vacuum-cleaner. Not much larger than my iron (which is rarely used). It had been put on display only this morning, and had received its safety certificate only last month. For £7.50 it was mine. I brought it home, tested it, it works and tomorrow I might actually use it.