Not with the actual dustbuster – the actual dustbuster is four years old and still going strong. (I have a Black & Decker 15.6V Cordless Cyclonic Hand Vac Model # CHV1568 and I give it two thumbs up – you’re welcome for the endorsement, B&D.)
The problem is that, while my dustbuster looks like this…
…when Mike looks into a perfectly clean, well-organized room and sees the dustbuster plugged in somewhere, like in the corner or under the desk, he sees this:
He has a deep and abiding hatred for the sight of this little cordless handvac that I can’t begin to fathom. “WHY is that thing just OUT there? It looks terrible. TERRIBLE.” Mike is pretty sure that every person on Hoarders started with a dustbuster charging in a visible spot.
I can’t complain too much, though, because Mike is also the only reason our entire house doesn’t look like a dorm room. Some people have a true gift for interior design; some people decorate their homes and hope for the best; and some people have changed addresses once a year for the past 30 years, so her idea of moving in is having a couch and a bed and a table, unpacking some of the boxes (definitely the ones with clothes in them and some of the books), putting a picture on the table, and having most of the kitchen utensils in drawers. My therapist calls it a detachment disorder. I call it convenient.
Either way, Mike’s actually got a talent for making this place look like adults with jobs live here.
At first, he’d ask me questions about this ottoman or that painting. I’d grunt and shrug, then go back to digging through the boxes in the closet looking for a flashlight or a deck of cards or my social security card or whatever. Then he’d go online and a few weeks later – boom! Dining room table! Boom! Rug in the living room!
I finally started getting in on the game. I try to look at a room now and think, “If I wanted to put something in here and not think about moving it again….what would I buy?” I had a large photograph and my diploma framed and they’re both actually hanging on the walls. I was a key player in deciding which rug we got for the office. Also, the gnome that’s on top of one of the kitchen cabinets? ALL ME. This is really becoming somewhere that I’m proud of, because I’m helping it look the way it does.
But I’m also the one who bought the dustbuster.
3 comments:
I remember when you bought that gnome. Good times.
So funny about the Dustbuster and a great accompanying photo of what Mike sees. LOL, seriously.
I fall into the category that you naturally fall into yourself. I wonder if it's because we moved around a lot and know how tortuous it is to move and getting more stuff means that eventually you're going to have to move that stuff and it's heavy and bulky and moving sucks already without having a bunch of fancy stuff to actually move! Whew, that was a mouthful.
Lisa, I think that's part of it. After a while, you can't look at a home purchase without thinking, instantly, "How would I move this?"
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