santa was early this year

i've been telling andy that he should buy a new vacuum for, oh, about three years. only recently has he begun to agree with me. he's using a hand-me-down from his parents, which is totally fine because it was free and it works. it's always emitted a stale odor with a hint of dog, but if you lit a scented candle after vacuuming you wouldn't notice it. lately though it's started to smell less like dog and more like electrical fire. we'd checked out a few vacuums but andy could never justify spending $100 when the one he had still worked. plus, he's infatuated with the dyson models and didn't want to be stuck with an inferior vaccum just incase it started raining dysons or something. anyway, we kept expecting this old vacuum to go at any moment. and by "go" i mean explode into a flaming ball of destruction.

the day after thanksgiving i went shopping, mostly out of boredom but also figured i might could score some good stuff for cheap. i saw a decent bissell bagless upright at big lots for $70 and figured i'd give it to him for Christmas, but i didn't buy it...couldn't tell ya why, i guess i just had a feeling i shouldn't buy it. a few days later andy told me he'd told his parents that he wanted one for Christmas. so i was glad i didn't get him one.

and then earlier last week i was driving home - it was about 10:30pm so some people in my townhouse complex had already put their larger items on the curb for thursday trash pickup - and of course i drove by real slow just in case there was anything "good" up for grabs. in the past i've gotten some awesome free stuff out of the trash piles: a big fake tree (sold it at a yard sale for $35), two nice patio chairs (currently on andy's patio), and a small utility shelf (it's now in the laundry room). this might embarass most of you, but i have no shame. then i saw it. standing tall and proud behind a busted chair and some cardboard boxes was a vacuum, glistening in the moonlight. it looked too good to be true, and i figured it was broken if it was in the trash pile. so i kept driving. but then i thought, hey, if this thing works then 1)andy would have a better vacuum for free and 2)i'd have a good story to tell. so i turned around and put the vacuum in my trunk. i tested it the next morning and it worked perfectly as far as i could tell. this weekend we bought a new filter, gave it a thorough cleaning, and vacuumed every inch of andy's condo. we're still wondering what's wrong with it.