When the Vacuum Starts Smoking at 8:17 PM

You know those people that walk around with their cell phone headsets? Don't you want to just trip them and watch them fall? I know it's old and unfunny to make fun of people with cell phone quirks, but seriously. I saw this guy walking around with a giant headset on that was attached to his cell phone. It wasn't as if he was doing anything to warrant a giant headset, either. He was carrying his cell phone in his hand. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the "hands-free" concept? And he wasn't having some kind of business conversation. He was just blathering on loudly and inanely about things that the people around him (me) didn't want to hear. It was obvious that he was either trying to look important or show off his cool new thing. It was one of those times where you're annoyed, but you almost feel sorry for the guy that he has low enough self-esteem to need to walk around talking to whomever about whatever loudly enough to show that he actually has things to talk about. And he has to talk to people enough that he can't bear to lift the phone to his ear for such extended periods of time. Nevermind. I'm just annoyed.

The wife and kid got back from Delaware on Sunday night, much to my delight. Even after just a week, it seems like Luke was bigger than when I saw him last. And he was happy to see me, so that made me feel good. The biggest development from that week is that whereas before he left he would mostly just crawl around and be excited by the novelty of crawling around, now he gets into things. Mostly electrical cords and other things that he's not supposed to have. His new favorite toy is the door stopper--you know--the one that's a tightly wound spring and when you pull it, it goes "Boioioioioing!!!!!". He loves that.

So I was vacuuming today, and I decided I should never vacuum again. I sucked up a piece of string that got wrapped around the roller thingie on the bottom of the vacuum, then when I turned it over to yank it out, I noticed smoke that was coming out of a random vacuum orifice that I hadn't noticed before. The wife was standing next to me and began to get excited about getting a new vacuum. This was when I decided I needed to use my new super power--fixing vacuum cleaners with my mind. I'm happy to report that somehow it worked, and the vacuum cleaner is running. Don't ask me how I did it, and don't ask me to come fix yours. I think it was just a one-time thing. Kind of like having magnetic hands.