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Tuesday, August 01, 2006

The Fountain of Middle Age


I've truly lost my adolescence. I think of myself basically as unchanged since 17, except maybe for my politics and my attitudes about 16-year-old girls.

I don't mean like a mid-life crisis, I mean I never have felt like I was not a teenager. Just that the actual teenagers I encounter seem less and less like me. More irritating, less educated than I surely was.

What's this got to do with the shedmonster pictured above? Glad you asked.

Barley sheds. Like he's training for the goddamn canine olympics shed team. Downhill shedding, cross country shedding, he could be a contender.

Plus, as yo can see, he's black. Meaning his little black hairs are instantly visible on what was once, I swear, off-white carpet. That tan, neutral stuff that's supposedly better for resale value.

For the past six months or so, I've been trying to keep it up with the shop vac. This is because my upright no longer sucked hard enough that I could see where I'd been. But the shop vac, powerful as it is, has a 3" swath, and it takes a long time, on all fours or stooped over to get the house done with it.

So Mom gave me an early birthday present. A vacuum cleaner. And I was excited to receive such a gift.

Which is where the lost adolescence thing comes in. It is so un-cool to get excited about a vaccum cleaner. It's probably immoral even.

But it does the job, and without the athletic effort the shop vac involves. I present before and after shots of the end of the hall where Barley The Dogfaced Boy sleeps.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy moly! What type of vaccuum is that?

Anonymous said...

How is it that you have two kids AND a dog, and my carpet that was previously the same color is now smattered with half-crusty, half-sticky brownish black spots ranging in size from 1cm to 5in. It just doesn't seem fair.

Chixulub said...

Well, if it makes you feel better, Autumn, I couldn't take a very large picture of my carpet without showing a large and permanent stain.

Pearson's ammonia helps, it gets most things but won't do anything for the Red Dye # whatever they put in cat food that Calypso throws up, for instance.

And S.R., it's a Eureka. Costco was running a sale, hence the early birthday present.

kimmyk said...

Holy crap that should be a commerical!

Ok bring your new handy dandy right out of the box vaccuum on over-I've got two beagles...I'll see ya when you get here.