Living in a Vacuum

If you're here wondering about Emery - he's doing much better -- now move along, because this post is going to be about the last 24 hours of my life and my relationship with my vacuum cleaner.

Yesterday I was going to vacuum.  The belt was broken on the vacuum cleaner.  I tried to take it apart to change it - I didn't even know if I had a replacement belt.  I spent waaaaaaay too much time trying to figure how to take it apart to replace the belt.  Finally I got on the internet and looked it up.  It said to "unscrew the 3 phillips headed screws".  - Ok - I figured there were screws, if I knew where they were I wouldn't be looking it up on the internet!  -- Finally I found the screws, got the vacuum apart - found a belt, wasn't sure it was the right one, walked up to Dale's Hardware, he didn't have a belt for my vacuum cleaner - but in our conversation he was sure I had the right one - I went home and tried it and it worked.  I put the vaccum cleaner back together -- I started it - and obviously had something wrong - because immediately the belt broke again!  Now I was on a quest - so I drove to Jamestown - yup - 50 miles one way - and bought 4 belts - got home put the new belt on - vacuumed and felt pretty good.

That was yesterday -- Today I was cleaning, and needed to vacuum this closet -- I vacuumed up some wire and broke the new belt -- so I think - Ok, no problem, I have 3 left -- so I take the vacuum cleaner apart again - and realize now - a piece of the vacuum is broken off -- no fix for this -- So now I need a new vacuum cleaner!  So I'm thinking, I should get one that uses the same belt?  --  Maybe I should just stop cleaning!  It's getting expensive!