Oct 31, 2013 4 min read

When I heard the relatives would be clearing out the vacation home to get ready to sell it, I weighed in first – with loud enthusiasm.

“Sweeper!” I said, calling dibs on the old vacuum cleaner. For the past 20 years it had been tucked and coiled in the living room closet at the little house at the lake. After each visit, we’d pull it out and give the place a once-over and each time, I marveled at how powerful the thing was. It is wide and clunky, and so heavy most people wouldn’t want it in a house with a lot of steps. But the thing did the job better than any sweeper I’ve ever had.

“It can suck the basement floor up into the kitchen,” was how we put it.

And now it would be mine.

Sitting here writing, I’m trying to count how many vacuum cleaners I’ve owned since I’ve been doing my own housework. Fifteen, maybe? At first there were hand-me-downs, seeming dinosaur models offered when parents and relatives traded up to something better.

I’d scoff, as 20-somethings tend to do. What did I need with a sweeper? While single and working full time, a cleaning lady came to do that. (The thought of those years – the way I was then, so carefree and self-centered – makes me cringe a bit.)

I should have taken the old sweepers because, as we all learn, these new ones are pretty much disposable. Sure, they look newfangled and all high-tech displayed there on the shelf at the big-box store. But wrestle the box home and put the thing together, and you realize they are designed to last about as along as a remote control battery. (Maybe the first warning sign should have been all the tiny screws and plastic we had to cobble together.)

We did a lot of sweeping when we were growing up. I remember notes waiting for us, listing our after-school chores. You never wanted to be the one who got sweep the whole house. It was not such a small house, and everything but the kitchen and bathrooms was carpeted. First there was a Kirby canister, which followed me around like a coiled sea creature. Steps were impossible with that thing. There was a Eureka, I think, and others with names I don’t remember.

Eventually, with my own house and my own household dirt, I’d have to buy my own vacuum cleaners. Cheaper was better, and so I’d buy something on sale, usually with Shark in the name. They’d work until they stopped working and then I’d be back at the display, perhaps selecting something with Wind in the name. And through all the basic, inexpensive models, I thought about that sweeper at the lake house. It was sturdy and the power cord was 20 feet long, so I wasn’t forever finding a closer outlet. And the cord is attached to the top of the sweeper not at the base, as cords are on the inexpensive store models; it’s a flawed design that forces you to hold the cord with one hand to avoid running over it.

Last weekend, I brought my old baby home from the lake house. It is heavy and red and has the name Riccar on the body. I waited until my living room carpet got good and grimy (about a 10-minute wait) and plugged her in. I recognized the growly hum; I could hear the dirt as it flew up into the bag. The carpet was cleaner than it’s been in, oh, 15 sweepers.

My red darling has got to be 20 years old, and it’s kicking the plastic butt of every Shark and Wind-thing that’s come before it.

When I changed the paper bag, I found bits of the basement inside.