A sweeping dilemma
“The sweeper,” I said in a text to my daughter this past Monday.
“OK,” she texted back. But still I wasn’t confident that she got the message.
“Really,” I texted. “Don’t forget it.”
That curt little exchange was one of several over the past week; they were my efforts to have my vacuum cleaner safely back in my house. My daughter and her husband are moving back to the area after a long time in upstate New York. Until the actual move in a few weeks, Grace is living a barebones existence without much furniture, and no vacuum cleaner.
And so she borrowed mine, and this is no average big-box-store kind of tool. It’s a Sebo, the much-vaunted German-engineered brand. Mine is going on 20 years old, purchased shortly after a labradoodle joined our family and did the thing we were told she would never do. She dropped hair and dander all over the house, enough to trigger my allergies. And although I wouldn’t do one unthinkable thing – getting rid of the dog – I did another. I spent many hundreds of dollars on a sweeper. Many.
It’s been worth the investment. It’s a hospital-grade upright with a nicely designed wand and hose that reaches far to grab bugs from the ceiling and then attaches back to the body. It uses disposable cloth bags that are easy to remove and replace. And the sucking power is majestic; it could inhale dirt from the basement right up through the kitchen floor. The power cord is long enough that I can do the whole first floor without switching outlets.
Grace covets it in a way she’s never coveted or asked for anything else of mine. Yes, she’s made off with a book or two, and when my favorite canvas shopping bag went missing I suspected her. And I accept that when I send her home with leftovers I’ll never see those containers again. Last time she was here she was wearing the Rock and Row rowing T-shirt I’d been looking for. But that’s all just the normal young-adult stuff.
Meanwhile in Kentucky, her brother has joined the gimme chorus.
“When you go (I suspect he was referring to the ‘Big Go’),” he said, “I want you to leave me the sweeper. Oh, and the piano,” he said. I thought his list was oddly out of order when you consider that it’s a Steinway studio upright, but whatever. It’s a really good sweeper.
So now I have a dilemma: which of my children will get the sweeper? I have no jewelry to bequeath, no valuable artwork, no priceless heirlooms. Should I write the sweeper into my will? Families have fallen apart over less.
“Save your pennies and buy yourself a Sebo,” I told Grace. I explained that before I bought that one, I’d been buying a less-expensive sweeper every year or two. “This one cost more, but has lasted longer. Think cost per serving.”
“Or you could just give me this one,” she said, flashing that smile and trying one last time.
I reminded her that her brother has his eye on the sweeper, too, and that the best plan is for each of them to buy one.
“Or you could decide to all live together and share it,” I said.
She brought the vacuum back yesterday. I rolled it over to its place between my bedroom and the laundry room. Last night when I went to the kitchen to turn out the lights, I passed by and gave it a loving little pat. Welcome home, pal.
You’re never leaving again.