That Lying Dirtbag

Last weekend I was hosting a party.  So obviously, I would need to vacuum.  But I have a dark brown rug in the living room.  After I vacuum, my kids get stuff on it again in about 2.5 seconds.  Every little crumbs stands out on dark brown.

(Aside note: I've tried both lighter and darker rugs.  I prefer darker now because with a lighter rug, the crumbs don't show but the dirty spots do.  I prefer a rug that can hide the stains.  With a good vacuuming, a dark rug can look nearly perfect again, even if the effect won't last long.  But it's much harder to reach a near perfect result with lighter rugs.)

I put off vacuuming until the end of the day when the kids were mostly done being in the living room.  And this was when I noticed that my vacuum roller brush wasn't turning.  Of course, when the party was starting in about an hour.  So I ended up vacuuming for my party on all fours with the upholstery attachment.

Yah, not fun.  Since I'm not hosting any more parties any time soon, I'm just gonna let my rug lie fallow until I fix the vacuum.

Which brings me to my next adventure.  Once the party aftermath had passed, I sat down to take apart the vacuum and verify what I suspected was a broken belt.  I looked at the bottom of the vacuum and molded into the vacuum's plastic were the following instructions, "TO ACCESS BELT & BRUSHROLL: REMOVE THREE SCREWS, TURN OVER AND LIFT NOZZLE COVER UP."  This seemed simple enough, so I removed three screws in various very asymmetrical locations from the bottom and started trying to remove the top cover.  I could pull one side up no problem, but the other side just wouldn't come up.  I tried every angle and wiggle and shake I could think of.  But something was holding it down really tight.  Finally I looked at the bottom again and saw that there was a screw right where it was stuck.  A fourth screw!  Once I removed that screw, everything came apart like a dream, I found the broken belt, and was on my merry wild goose chase way.  (Turns out? Not that easy to track down "style 20 belts.")

But four screws.  FOUR!  I could maybe begin to understand if the disassembly instructions were in a printed manual.  Or even on a sticker.  I can see a miscommunication between manufacturing and the tech writers about how many screws there are going to be in the final product.  Or if changes were made and someone missed an update in the documentation.  But these words about three screws were molded into the plastic.  You know, the same mold where they had molded in FOUR screw holes.