Earlier this week I got a new vacuum cleaner. I got it by cashing out Marriott Rewards points, as I had roughly 180,000 points in the bank and I wasn't planning any trips soon. And if I do, I've got about 240,000 Hilton HHonors points I can use. Marriott sent me a catalog in the mail kindly showing me how I could use my points to buy stuff, so I took them up on the offer and got a $100 B&N gift card and an Oreck Platinum Pilot (which came with a portable vacuum, as well).
So today I decided to test that puppy out. First thing that I learned is that it is self-propelled. The second thing that I learned is that this vacuum is way more powerful than my old vacuum, a small Dirt Devil cannister my parents got me way back in 1998 when I moved to Arlington, VA. Yes, I have been using that sucker straight through for nearly 13 years now. I learned how powerful my new vacuum is when I happened to get it close to a piece of speaker wire that I have running from my stereo, under the cocktail table, to one of my rear channel speakers in my 5.1 setup. As I was moving close to the wire my brain began to register that this could possibly end poorly. Unfortunately, my brain was not as powerful as the vacuum. Before my brain could register what had happened the vacuum had snatched up the speaker wire, pulled both ends out from the receiver and the speaker, and wrapped it all up around the agitator. This took maybe half a second, if that. That wire got pulled so fast the speaker, mounted on a speaker pedestal and not all that sturdy, didn't even move.
With a bit of effort I was able to free the wire from the vacuum and get it re-attached. It seems to work fine, so no harm done. Still, it was a nice little warning that my new vacuum is quite powerful/potentially dangerous. Well, either that or that my old vacuum is a weak piece of junk that I should have gotten rid of six years ago. Maybe both.
No comments:
Post a Comment