Vacuum Cleaner Quotes

Simon, you’re blushing,” observed Jace. “And you’re a vampire and almost never blush, so this better be really juicy. And weird. Were bicycles involved in some kinky way? Vacuum cleaners? Umbrellas?

We're selling vacuum cleaners.

I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.

The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall from a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins. I just wanted to make that clear before I begun.

If you don’t know how to love, then any old robot or mechanical device would best suit your relationship style. In this situation, vacuum cleaners might make the best lovers.

Shotgunning anybody in this room would be the moral equivalent of killing a car, a Barbie doll, a vacuum cleaner. We're all such products.

One of history’s fews iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Over the few decades, we have invented countless time saving machines that are supposed to make like more relaxed - washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. We thought we were saving time; instead we revved up the treadmill of life to ten times its former speed and made our days more anxious and agitated.

Amazing. You were so attached to it, and it still disappeared for you." “Attached! I was whocking that cloud with everything I had! Fireballs, laser beams, vacuum cleaner a block high...” “Negative attachments, Richard. If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production out of it, you just relax and remove it from your thinking. That’s all there is to it.

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.

Worry is to joy what a Hoover vacuum cleaner is to dirt: might as well attach your heart to a happiness-sucker and flip the switch.

Like some kind of strange vacuum cleaner I tried to console him. I recited the same old litanies that you say to people when you try to help their broken hearts, but words can't help at all. It's just the sound of another human voice that makes the only difference. There's nothing you're ever going to say that's going to make anybody happy when they're feeling shitty about losing somebody that they love.

I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.

Shotgunning anybody in this room would be the moral equivalent of killing a car, a vacuum cleaner, a Barbie doll. Erasing a computer disk. Burning a Book. Probably that goes for killing anybody in the world. We're all such products.

What about the jerks who think good oral sex consists of sucking your clit so hard it feels like you're stuck to a vacuum cleaner? You're there, squirming, about to pass out from agony, slapping at him and yanking his hair to get him to stop, and what does the moron do? Thinks you're coming, redoubles his efforts, and obnoxiously grins at you.

The air in my home is heavy with my mom's unhappiness. And her exhaustion. And her sheer dissatisfaction with her life. And I hate it. I can be up in my room when she's in the kitchen below and I feel her despair seeping up through the floorboards. You can hear her banging pots and pans or cursing the vacuum cleaner

Many writing texts caution against asking friends to read your stuff, suggesting you're not apt to get a very unbiased opinion[.] ... It's unfair, according to this view, to put a pal in such a position. What happens if he/she feels he/she has to say, "I'm sorry, good buddy, you've written some great yarns in the past but this one sucks like a vacuum cleaner"? The idea has some validity, but I don't think an unbiased opinion is exactly what I'm looking for. And I believe that most people smart enough to read a novel are also tactful enough to find a gentler mode of expression than "This sucks." (Although most of us know that "I think this has a few problems" actually means "This sucks," don't we?)

In that day, we didn't have no remote controls and vacuum cleaners. If you wanted all that stuff you had children!

Taking in money, banks were like industrial vacuum cleaners. Giving it out, they were clogged faucets

No scarf tonight?" the captain asked, pointing at Solara's neck. "I guess you finally beat that cold virus." "I don't believe she had a cold," Renny said thoughtfully. "I'll bet it was the Hoover flu. You know, named after the old vacuum cleaners on Earth?" "Oh, I've heard of that disease," Cassia chimed in. "Doesn't it cause a rash that looks like suction marks? Highly contagious when mixed with cute guys and Crystalline?

The number of hours women devote to housework has not changed since 1930, despite all the advances. All the vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, trash compactors, garbage disposals, wash-and-wear fabrics … Why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930?

But most of all in the last couple of years I have been listening. As a journalist, I learned to listen. It is amazing how much people will tell you if you listen in the right way. Rob, my PA, says that I can listen like a vacuum cleaner. Always beware of somebody who is a really good listener.

Shopping for clothes is a Boyfriend Thing. You stand around and look blankly at a bunch of pieces of fabric and you look at the price tags and you wonder how something that'd barely cover your right nut can cost the price of a kidney and you watch the shop assistants check you out and wonder what you're doing with her because she's cute and you're kind of funny-looking and she tries clothes on and you look at her ass in a dozen different items that all look exactly the same and let's face it you're just looking at her ass anyway and it all blurs together and then someone sticks a vacuum cleaner in your wallet and vacuums out all the cash and you leave the store with one bag so small that mice couldn't fuck in it. Repeat a dozen times or until the front of your brain dies.

If I were a robot, and I got cheated on with a vacuum cleaner, I’d question my cleanliness. I’d also wonder if dating a beautiful yellow bulldozer was wise. Is my bulldozer nothing but a gold digger?

MacKenzie grinned at Mim. "They love the modern appliances." "Especially the electric floor sweeper," Valor chuckled. "Defiance really has a thing for the vacuum cleaner," MacKenzie agreed in a secretive whisper. "If he ever has kids, he'll probably name the first one Hoover," Havoc snickered.

Henry. She could never trust a man who shared his name with a vacuum cleaner.

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot You call the shots babe I just wanna be yours Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours Wanna be yours, wanna be yours, wanna be yours Let me be your 'leccy meter and I'll never run out And let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without I wanna be your setting lotion (I wanna be) Hold your hair in deep devotion (How deep?) At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean I wanna be yours Read more: Arctic Monkeys - I Wanna Be Yours Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Almost at once, sleep, like some rhythmical, snoring vacuum cleaner, consumed the awful day.

Marjorie Fretwell once sucked a copperhead up in her vacuum cleaner because she didn’t know what to do with it and then she had to throw the whole vacuum away,” Kitty said. “Don’t talk to me about Marjorie Fretwell.

Has something happened to upset you today?” “Yeah, I had an argument with a vacuum cleaner hose, it wanted me to it a blowjob, but I refused so it took offence. It claimed I blew everyone else's attachment and it wasn't fair.

This is what I love to do: I love to run through a field of wet grass that has not been mowed recently, I love to run, keeping my snout low to the ground so the grass and the sparkles of water cover my face. I imagine myself as a vacuum cleaner, sucking in all the smells. all the life, a spear of summer grass. It reminds me of my childhood, back on the farm in Spangle, where there was no rain but there was grass, there were fields, and I ran. ~ p208

Screaming. Did I mention the screaming? Screaming is usually associated with horror films and roller coasters. This is why I usually look like I’ve just watched a horror film on a rollercoaster. Kids love to scream. Frightened, happy, bored. They scream. I’ve actually learned to love the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It’s just so peaceful.

She had discovered long ago that you could use a computer without understanding how it worked. Just as you could use an automobile, vacuum cleaner - or your own brain.

Have you ever heard of anybody buying a vacuum cleaner at a vacuum cleaner store?" "One of the unsolved mysteries of the universe," Packard adds.

Frankly, I'm guessing that before getting to my house today, Shoshanna had thought the Hoover Dam was some kind of vacuum cleaner attachment.

There is no guarantee that we won't be suctioned off the surface of the earth by a demonically possessed vacuum cleaner.

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot You call the shots babe I just wanna be yours Secrets I have held in my heart Are harder to hide than I thought Maybe I just wanna be yours I wanna be yours,I wanna be yours Wanna be yours, wanna be yours, wanna be yours Let me be your 'leccy meter and I'll never run out And let me be the portable heater that you'll get cold without I wanna be your setting lotion (I wanna be) Hold your hair in deep devotion (How deep?) At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean I wanna be yours

But you sent off that Flounder fellow," Loki said, and I rolled my eyes. "His name is Finn, and I know you know that," I said as I left the room. Loki grabbed the vacuum and followed me. "You called him by his name this morning." "Fine, I know his name," Loki admitted. We went into the next room, and he set down the vacuum as I started peeling the dusty blankets off the bed. "But you were okay with Finn going off to Oslinna, but not Duncan?" "Finn can handle himself," I said tersely. The bedding got stuck on a corner, and Loki came over to help me free it. Once he had, I smiled thinly at him. "Thank you." "But I know you had a soft spot for Finn," Loki continued. "My feelings for him have no bearing on his ability to do his job." I tossed the dirty blankets at Loki. He caught them easily before setting them down by the door, presumably for Duncan to take to the laundry chute again. "I've never understood exactly what your relationship with him was, anyway," Loki said. I'd started putting new sheets on the bed, and he went around to the other side to help me. "Were you two dating?" "No." I shook my head. "We never dated. We were never anything." I continued to pull on the sheets, but Loki stopped, watching me. "I don't know if that's a lie or not, but I do know that he was never good enough for you." "But I suppose you think you are?" I asked with a sarcastic laugh. "No, of course I'm not good enough for you," Loki said, and I lifted my head to look up at him, surprised by his response. "But I at least try to be good enough." "You think Finn doesn't?" I asked, standing up straight. "Every time I've seen him around you, he's telling you what to do, pushing you around." He shook his head and went back to making the bed. "He wants to love you, I think, but he can't. He won't let himself, or he's incapable. And he never will." The truth of his words stung harder than I'd thought they would, and I swallowed hard. "And obviously, you need someone that loves you," Loki continued. "You love fiercely, with all your being. And you need someone that loves you the same. More than duty or the monarchy or the kingdom. More than himself even." He looked up at me then, his eyes meeting mine, darkly serious. My heart pounded in my chest, the fresh heartache replaced with something new, something warmer that made it hard for me to breathe. "But you're wrong." I shook my head. "I don't deserve that much." "On the contrary, Wendy." Loki smiled honestly, and it stirred something inside me. "You deserve all the love a man has to give." I wanted to laugh or blush or look away, but I couldn't. I was frozen in a moment with Loki, finding myself feeling things for him I didn't think I could ever feel for anyone else. "I don't know how much more laundry we can fit down the chute," Duncan said as he came back in the room, interrupting the moment. I looked away from Loki quickly and grabbed the vacuum cleaner. "Just get as much down there as you can," I told Duncan. "I'll try." He scooped up another load of bedding to send downstairs. Once he'd gone, I glanced back at Loki, but, based on the grin on his face, I'd say his earlier seriousness was gone. "You know, Princess, instead of making that bed, we could close the door and have a roll around in it." Loki wagged his eyebrows. "What do you say?" Rolling my eyes, I turned on the vacuum cleaner to drown out the conversation. "I'll take that as a maybe later!" Loki shouted over it.

she saw a man standing on her back porch stoop. And it was a man, not a lawnmower or a vacuum cleaner but an actual man. Luckily, she had time to register the fact that, although he wasn’t Deputy Boeckman, he was also dressed in Castle County khaki. This saved her the embarrassment of screaming like Jamie Lee Curtis in a Halloween movie.

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the melody of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

Such presumption," said Aunt Laura, meaning for a Dix to aspire to a Murray. "It wasn't because of his presumption I packed him off," said Emily. "It was because of the way he made love. He made a thing ugly that should have been beautiful." "I suppose you wouldn't have him because he didn't propose romantically," said Aunt Elizabeth contemptuously. "No. I think my real reason was that I felt sure he was the kind of man who would give his wife a vacuum cleaner for a Christmas present," vowed Emily.

My mother, who has read all of Balzac and quotes Flaubert at every dinner, is living proof every day of how education is a raging fraud. All you need to do is watch her with the cats. She’s vaguely aware of their decorative potential, and yet she insists on talking to them as if they were people, which she would never do with a lamp or an Etruscan statue. It would seem that children believe for a fairly long time that anything that moves has a soul and is endowed with intention. My mother is no longer a child but she apparently has not managed to conceive that Constitution and Parliament possess no more understanding than the vacuum cleaner.

In Floral Heights and the other prosperous sections of Zenith, especially in the “young married set,” there were many women who had nothing to do. Though they had few servants, yet with gas stoves, electric ranges and dish-washers and vacuum cleaners, and tiled kitchen walls, their houses were so convenient that they had little housework, and much of their food came from bakeries and delicatessens. They had but two, one, or no children; and despite the myth that the Great War had made work respectable, their husbands objected to their “wasting time and getting a lot of crank ideas” in unpaid social work, and still more to their causing a rumor, by earning money, that they were not adequately supported. They worked perhaps two hours a day, and the rest of the time they ate chocolates, went to the motion-pictures, went window-shopping, went in gossiping twos and threes to card-parties, read magazines, thought timorously of the lovers who never appeared, and accumulated a splendid restlessness which they got rid of by nagging their husbands. The husbands nagged back.

The thing about being cloned from all those shampoo commercials, well, that goes for me and Brandy Alexander, too. Shotgunning anybody in this room would be the moral equivalent of killing a car, a vacuum cleaner, a Barbie doll. Erasing a computer disk. Burning a book. Probably that goes for killing anybody in the world. We're all such products.

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest— Yo ho ho and a packet of crisps.” “Any

Friendship, much like family, seems to come with too many attachments — like a vacuum cleaner too complicated to use.

vitrine. Upstairs his wife runs a vacuum cleaner; he can

Someone should take a vacuum cleaner to his sentences.

Taking in money, banks were like industrial vacuum cleaners. Giving it out, they were clogged faucets. Heather

What, incidentally, was a pregnant mother of two doing, operating a vacuum cleaner on Mother’s Day? She was practically asking for a bullet between the eyes, wasn’t she?

War is like a vacuum cleaner that sucks tax dollars out of your pocket and funnels the money directly into the pockets of the robber barons who own the weapons factories.

dog or a vacuum cleaner covered in fur.

I'm sure, you'll never again have a problem with a tool or a machine. No more hammered thumbs, no vacuum-cleaner catastrophes." "That'll take a second miracle." "Because all that clumsiness was never anything but an elaborate excuse not to have a gun, not to learn how to use one.

But he could think of nothing, and as Ollie sleepwalked past him into the den, pulling their vacuum cleaner by its hose, Fred thought—with no idea of how wrong he was—that at least things could not get worse.

The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books, the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall out of a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.

She had the morals of a vacuum cleaner and the soul of a pari-mutuel machine, a good figure, and that lovely vicious face, and she only stayed with Roger long enough to get ready for her first good step upwards in life.

In fact, vibrators were one of the first appliances to be electrified in the late nineteenth century, not long after the sewing machine but well ahead of the vacuum cleaner. It seems the Victorians had their priorities right.

That’s what this was, right? This love thing. It was being comfortable with a person and all their flaws. He looked like a flexed-up Adonis after sex, and she looked like she’d been sucked into a vacuum cleaner, but whatever.

...there were fridges, washing-machines for both clothes and dishes, ordinary stoves as well as microwave ovens, food mixers, juicers, vacuum cleaners, the thousand and one electro-domestic inventions destined to make life easier.

Precisely. It ignores the greater meaning born out of the combination of those things.” Mosscap touched their metal torso, smiling with pride. “I am made of metal and numbers; you are made of water and genes. But we are each something more than that. And we can’t define what that something more is simply by our raw components. You don’t perceive the way an ant does any more than I perceive like a … I don’t know. A vacuum cleaner. Do you still have vacuum cleaners?

Henry believes he knows exactly when the ninety-four-year-old woman in the neighbouring apartment dies. He hears her turn off. Until now he has not been able to distinguish her from her appliances – her washing machine, her vacuum cleaner, her radiators, her television. But the moment she gives up the ghost he detects the cessation of a noise of which he was not previously aware. A hum, was it? A whirr? Impossible to say. There is no word for the sound a life makes.

Another trick—calculated to lure a different, more sophisticated customer—was to bury a piece in the back of the store, reverse the vacuum cleaner over it (instant antiquity!) and allow the nosy customer to ferret it out on his or her own—look,

There were little girls who would snuggle up to any grown man and try to guide his hand inside their underwear, and there were kids who compulsively bit their own arms. Kids who would suddenly start twitching and banging their heads against a wall, not even stopping when the blood ran down their faces. Kids who waddled around oblivious to the stinking load in their own pants. Watching children like this, it was all too easy to see why their parents beat them. It was only natural to hate such kids, to ignore them and shower only your other children with love. Who wouldn't? But of course that wasn't the way it really worked. Such behaviors weren't the reasons parents abused children, but the results of abuse. Children are powerless. No matter how viciously they're beaten, children were powerless to do anything about it. Even if Mother hit them with a shoehorn or the hose of a vacuum cleaner or the handle of a kitchen knife, or strangled them or poured boiling water on them, they couldn't escape her; they couldn't even truly despise her. Children would struggle desperately to feel love for their parents. Rather than hate a parent, in fact, they'd choose to hate themselves. Love and violence became so intertwined for them that when they grew up and got into relationships, only hysteria could set their hearts at ease. Kindness, gentleness - anything along those lines just caused tension, since there was no telling when it would turn to overt hostility.

needle. As a result, Margot had to peel potatoes for me (take the good with the bad), and writing was awkward. Then I bumped into the cupboard door so hard it nearly knocked me over, and was scolded for making such a racket. They wouldn’t let me run water to bathe my forehead, so now I’m walking around with a giant lump over my right eye. To make matters worse, the little toe on my right foot got stuck in the vacuum cleaner. It bled and hurt, but my other ailments were already causing me so

I once compiled a list of events that frightened her, and it was quite comprehensive: very loud snoring; low-flying aircraft; church bells; fire engines; trains; buses and lorries; thunder; shouting; large cars; most medium-sized cars; noisy small cars; burglar alarms; fireworks, especially crackers; loud radios; barking dogs; whinnying horses; nearby silent horses; cows in general; megaphones; sheep; corks coming out of sparkling wine bottles; motorcycles, even very small ones; balloons being popped; vacuum cleaners (not being used by her); things being dropped; dinner gongs; parrot houses; whoopee cushions; chiming doorbells; hammering; bombs; hooters; old-fashioned alarm clocks; pneumatic drills; and hairdryers (even those used by her).

In no sense are the robot dogs, automated vacuum cleaners and old-folks lifting machines just examples of yet another consumer society with nothing meaningful left to spend its disposable income on. No, robots are the future. They have been for generations.

When I’m by myself I revert to the times when I would forget about eating, stay up all night working, go until I felt an odd sensation I’d identify after some thought as hunger. Then I’d go through the refrigerator like a vacuum cleaner, sucking in whatever there was. Leftovers.

At various times in the past, technological optimists have predicted that textile workers would benefit from factory automation, that women would be emancipated by washing machines and vacuum cleaners, and that racial discrimination would vanish in the age of computers. If only.

I really should have taken notes, my vocabulary of Galactic cuss words wasn’t what it should have been. One particularly grievous offender was informed that he was the offspring of a vacuum cleaner and a garage door opener, while they were both under the influence of a power surge.

What advances?” Malcolm said irritably. “The number of hours women devote to housework has not changed since 1930, despite all the advances. All the vacuum cleaners, washer-dryers, trash compactors, garbage disposals, wash-and-wear fabrics … Why does it still take as long to clean the house as it did in 1930?

The college lifestyle is about becoming independent, with no one else around to force you to do anything. So there's this muck that hasn't been dealt with, and because all your arrangements are loose now, you have no one to hold on to, which means you get sucked into the vacuum cleaner and tossed around in it.

Dear New Orleans, What a big, beautiful mess you are. A giant flashing yellow light—proceed with caution, but proceed. Not overly ambitious, you have a strong identity, and don’t look outside yourself for intrigue, evolution, or monikers of progress. Proud of who you are, you know your flavor, it’s your very own, and if people want to come taste it, you welcome them without solicitation. Your hours trickle by, Tuesdays and Saturdays more similar than anywhere else. Your seasons slide into one another. You’re the Big Easy…home of the shortest hangover on the planet, where a libation greets you on a Monday morning with the same smile as it did on Saturday night. Home of the front porch, not the back. This engineering feat provides so much of your sense of community and fellowship as you relax facing the street and your neighbors across it. Rather than retreating into the seclusion of the backyard, you engage with the goings-on of the world around you, on your front porch. Private properties hospitably trespass on each other and lend across borders where a 9:00 A.M. alarm clock is church bells, sirens, and a slow-moving eight-buck-an-hour carpenter nailing a windowpane two doors down. You don’t sweat details or misdemeanors, and since everybody’s getting away with something anyway, the rest just wanna be on the winning side. And if you can swing the swindle, good for you, because you love to gamble and rules are made to be broken, so don’t preach about them, abide. Peddlin worship and litigation, where else do the dead rest eye to eye with the livin? You’re a right-brain city. Don’t show up wearing your morals on your sleeve ’less you wanna get your arm burned. The humidity suppresses most reason so if you’re crossing a one-way street, it’s best to look both ways. Mother Nature rules, the natural law capital “Q” Queen reigns supreme, a science to the animals, an overbearing and inconsiderate bitch to us bipeds. But you forgive her, and quickly, cus you know any disdain with her wrath will reap more: bad luck, voodoo, karma. So you roll with it, meander rather, slowly forward, takin it all in stride, never sweating the details. Your art is in your overgrowth. Mother Nature wears the crown around here, her royalty rules, and unlike in England, she has both influence and power. You don’t use vacuum cleaners, no, you use brooms and rakes to manicure. Where it falls is where it lays, the swerve around the pothole, the duck beneath the branch, the poverty and the murder rate, all of it, just how it is and how it turned out. Like a gumbo, your medley’s in the mix. —June 7, 2013, New Orleans, La.

We're buying curtains, babe, that activity hardly requires a cart," he noted. "We're in a home store, Tate," I replied, thinking my answer said all. "And?" he returned, stating plainly my answer did not say all. "A mega home store," I added. "And?" "And, I came here a few days ago to buy you sheets. I ended up buying you two sets of sheets, six new pillows, a down comforter, a comforter cover and shams. That happens in a home store," I educated him. "You come in needing a spatula and you go out with a spatula, new kitchen towels, candles, candle holders, cool things to seal open chip bags, a variety of frames, a soap dispenser and a new vacuum cleaner.

The “scattering of ashes” had always sounded like such an ethereal act to Laura, but in reality, she reflected, it was more akin to emptying a vacuum-cleaner bag.

So we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop) Our myxomatoid kids spraddle the streets, we've shunned them from the greasy-grind The poor little things, they look so sad and old as they mount us from behind I ask them to desist and to refrain And then we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop)Rosary clutched in his hand, he died with tubes up his nose And a cabal of angels with finger cymbals chanted his name in code We shook our fists at the punishing rain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop) He said everything is messed up around here, everything is banal and jejune There is a planetary conspiracy against the likes of you and me in this idiot constituency of the moon Well, he knew exactly who to blame And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop) Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix! Prolix! Prolix! Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!(Doop doop doop doop dooop) Well, I go guruing down the street, young people gather round my feet Ask me things, but I don't know where to start They ignite the power-trail ssstraight to my father's heart And once again I call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...)We call upon the author to explain Who is this great burdensome slavering dog-thing that mediocres my every thought? I feel like a vacuum cleaner, a complete sucker, it's fucked up and he is a fucker But what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain I call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Oh rampant discrimination, mass poverty, third world debt, infectious diseease Global inequality and deepening socio-economic divisions Well, it does in your brain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Now hang on, my friend Doug is tapping on the window (Hey Doug, how you been?) Brings me back a book on holocaust poetry complete with pictures Then tells me to get ready for the rain And we call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) I say prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix Bukowski was a jerk! Berryman was best! He wrote like wet papier mache, went the Heming-way weirdly on wings and with maximum pain We call upon the author to explain (Doop doop doop doop dooop ...) Down in my bolthole I see they've published another volume of unreconstructed rubbish "The waves, the waves were soldiers moving". Well, thank you, thank you, thank you And again I call upon the author to explain Yeah, we call upon the author to explain Prolix! Prolix! There's nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!

We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as "vacuum cleaners", sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens. The tendency of intelligence activities to expand beyond their initial scope is a theme which runs through every aspect of our investigative findings. Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. And once intelligence has been collected, there are strong pressures to use it against the target.

I came here a few days ago to buy you sheets. I ended up buying you two sets of sheets, six new pillows, a down comforter, a comforter cover and shams. That happens in a home store,” I educated him. “You come in needing a spatula and you go out with a spatula, new kitchen towels, candles, candle holders, cool things to seal open chip bags, a variety of frames, a soap dispenser and a new vacuum cleaner.

Food processors, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and clothes-washing machines have substancially lessened the physical activity required to cook and clean. Air conditioners and central heating have decreased how much energy our bodies spend to maintain a stable body temperature. Countless other devices, such as electric can openers, remote controls, electric razors and suitcases on wheels, have reduced, calorie by calorie, the amount of energy we expend to exist.

For us today, it is still difficult to imagine a future society in which paid labor is not the be-all and end-all of our existence. But the inability to imagine a world in which things are different is evidence only of a poor imagination, not of the impossibility of change. In the 1950s we couldn’t conceive that the advent of refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and, above all, washing machines would help prompt women to enter the workplace in record numbers, and yet they did.

These austere lifestyles were accompanied by an ideal of equality. In the first half of the twentieth century, most Americans liked to see themselves as members of a more or less uniform middle class. ‘The rich man smokes the same sort of cigarettes as the poor man, shaves with the same sort of razor, uses the same sort of telephone, vacuum cleaner, radio and TV set,’ Harper’s Magazine wrote with satisfaction in 1947. With this ideal came a sense of proportion; you didn’t always need to

A loud whine cut through the day's quiet and Josie looked out the window to find a man wearing some kind of jetpack attached to a vacuum cleaner. Oh no. A leaf blower. The easiest way to witness the stupidity and misplaced hopes of all humanity is to watch, for twenty minutes, a human using a leaf blower. With this machine, the man was saying, I will murder all quiet. I will destroy the aural plane. And I will do so with a machine that performs a task far less efficiently than I could with a rake.

My sister has appendages connected to her ankles. They feature toes and arches, but I cannot call them feet. In color they resemble the leathery paws of great apes, but in texture they are closer to hooves. In order to maintain her balance, she’ll periodically clear the bottoms of debris—a bottle cap, bits of broken glass, a chicken bone—but within moments she’ll have stepped on something else and begun the process all over again. It’s what happens when you sell both your broom and your vacuum cleaner.

The head of the initiative was the former CEO of a website that served as a repository of humorous images and videos optimized for social media virality—mostly cats doing improbable things, like riding robotic vacuum cleaners and getting stuck in hamburger buns. The website had raised nearly forty-two million dollars in venture capital. He would be working alongside another entrepreneur, a woman who had founded an on-demand housekeeping platform that had shut down amid a spate of lawsuits. The audacity was breathtaking.

Me: Staying here tonight. Helen: You okay? Code word? Helen and I had code words for everything. It was usually an old pet’s name or a line from one of our favorite movies. Growing up, Helen’s family had Maltipoos. It’s a mix between a Maltese and miniature poodle . . . damned dog people and their overbreeding. Anyway, they had a little black Maltipoo named Major. He would have been adorable if he weren’t an incessant humper. It was just vile; truly, the dog was persistent and fanatical about humping. Witnessing Major molest everything in his path was traumatizing. He was constantly in motion, his little butt pumping in and out. There was clearly something wrong with him. He humped everything from stuffed animals to vacuum cleaners to any leg he came in contact with. Helen and I hated that dog. We called him Major Humperdinck. After high school it became our code for I totally want this guy to hump me. I know, we were disgusting girls. Me: Major. Helen: Major What? Me: Don’t . . . Helen: I’m calling the police. Me: Major Humperdinck Helen: I knew it. Well, have fun . . . slut.

I was sitting on the bench outside his barn, reading an old copy of Our Man in Havana from his shelf. It turned out that I still loved reading. I loved that a novelist on the payroll of MI6 had dreamed up a hapless vacuum-cleaner salesman, drafted into the Secret Intelligence Service so that he might better fund the extravagant lifestyle of his beautiful daughter. I loved that I could read about this man for hours and never once pause to overthink my own life. I loved that, with a book in my hand and no urgent need to be anywhere, or to be doing anything, I felt like a Sarah I’d entirely forgotten.

Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life?

Around town, they confused and horrified residents by doing things like dismantling a toaster with a screwdriver at the local department store to make sure the heating coil would toast the bread just so. One employee brought a pressure gauge from the lab into a store to test the suction capabilities of a vacuum cleaner model. Local car salesmen wanted to roll over and play dead when one of the Langley fellas pulled into the lot, fearing a barrage of nonsensical and unanswerable technical questions. They drove to work with books on their steering wheels. The NACA nuts always thought they had a better way to do anything—everything—and didn’t hesitate to tell the locals so.

this dream where I just tell it all, and then this special-made vacuum cleaner comes and sucks all the crap out of my lungs. Stops me from drowning. Clean oxygen reaches deep in my chest like it hasn’t for so goddamn long. In the dream I tell it all, and I breathe like a baby. I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it’s gonna come. Siddalee asks too many questions. I don’t know where the child gets those thoughts. She pins me to the wall with all the stuff she asks. Sometimes I wish she’d lose her voice. And sometimes I want to go and sit in front of her and ask her questions. I’d like to say: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do—step by step—to get out of the mess we’re in here in this house. But I know it’s foolishness

Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life?

Our neighbors would rise early and visit the malls, snatching up gift-wrapped Dustbusters and the pom-pommed socks used to protect the heads of golf clubs. Christmas would arrive and we, the people of this country, would gather around identical trees, voicing our pleasure with worn clichés. Turkeys would roast to a hard, shellacked finish. Hams would be crosshatched with x’s and glazed with fruit — and it was fine by me. Were I to receive a riding vacuum cleaner or even a wizened proboscis monkey, it wouldn’t please me half as much as knowing we were the only family in the neighborhood with a prostitute in our kitchen. From this moment on, the phrase “ho, ho, ho” would take on a whole different meaning; and I, along with the rest of my family, could appreciate it in our own clannish way. It suddenly occurred to me. Just like that.

After all, no big business idea makes sense at first. I mean, just imagine proposing the following ideas to a group of sceptical investors: ‘What people want is a really cool vacuum cleaner.’ (Dyson) ‘. . . and the best part of all this is that people will write the entire thing for free!’ (Wikipedia) ‘. . . and so I confidently predict that the great enduring fashion of the next century will be a coarse, uncomfortable fabric which fades unpleasantly and which takes ages to dry. To date, it has been largely popular with indigent labourers.’ (Jeans) ‘. . . and people will be forced to choose between three or four items.’ (McDonald’s) ‘And, best of all, the drink has a taste which consumers say they hate.’ (Red Bull) ‘. . . and just watch as perfectly sane people pay $5 for a drink they can make at home for a few pence.’ (Starbucks)*

One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it. Let’s take another familiar example from our own time. Over the last few decades, we have invented countless time-saving devices that are supposed to make life more relaxed – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, telephones, mobile phones, computers, email. Previously it took a lot of work to write a letter, address and stamp an envelope, and take it to the mailbox. It took days or weeks, maybe even months, to get a reply. Nowadays I can dash off an email, send it halfway around the globe, and (if my addressee is online) receive a reply a minute later. I’ve saved all that trouble and time, but do I live a more relaxed life?

Please tidy your room this instant!” Gertrude’s mother would plead. The poor lady was in torment. She prided herself on keeping the rest of her house utterly spotless. If a single biscuit crumb dropped on to the carpet, Mother would get the vacuum cleaner out. The grubbiness of Gertrude’s bedroom was absolutely horrifying to her. How had she, a lady who always kept a vase of fresh flowers on the dining table, given birth to a child who chose to live in a… swamp? “BOG OFF!” Gertrude would reply with a laugh. She knew that her mother (always immaculately turned out with her hair in a swirl and a string of pearls round her neck) loathed her saying the word ‘BOG’. So Gertrude always, always, always made sure she used it when speaking to her. “Daughter! I forbid you from using that foul word!” Mother would wail. “What?‘BOG’?” Gertrude would answer mischievously. “Yes. It’s a frightful word that has no place in my otherwise delightful home. Now, young lady, I need you to tidy your room this instant!”“BOG OFF!” Gertrude would shout back. 135

She had no need in her heart for either book or magazine. She had her own way of escape, her own passage into contentment: her rosary. That string of white beads, the tiny links worn in a dozen places and held together by strands of white thread which in turn broke regularly, was, bead for bead, her quiet flight out of the world. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And Maria began to climb. Bead for bead, life and living fell away. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. Dream without sleep encompassed her. Passion without flesh lulled her. Love without death crooned the memory of belief. She was away: she was free; she was no longer Maria, American or Italian, poor or rich, with or without electric washing machines and vacuum cleaners; here was the land of all-possessing. Hail Mary, Hail Mary, over and over, a thousand and a hundred thousand times, prayer upon prayer, the sleep of the body, the escape of the mind, the death of memory, the slipping away of pain, the deep silent reverie of belief. Hail Mary and Hail Mary. It was for this that she lived.

Two types of sweets were served with the tea: one was varenya, a chunky jam chock-full of whole pieces of fruit, usually grapes. (Who had money for strawberries? my aunt Batsheva pointed out when she read a draft of this book.) The other was “herring tails,” as my grandfather called herring, which was to him—and now to me—better than any sweet the world over. Grandpa Aharon called it selyodka and told the following story about it: In the shop that his family had “back there” in Makarov, in Ukraine, “we sold products for the body, products for the soul, and products for between the two.” When I asked him what he meant by that, he explained. “Products for the body were axes and hoes and boots for the Ukrainian farmers. Products for the soul were tallises, tefillin, and prayer books for the Jews.” Then he fell silent and stared at me in order to get me to ask what the products in between the two were. “Grandpa,” I said, “and what were the products in between the two?” “In between the two,” he chuckled, “is selyodka, herring. It’s for both the body and the soul.

It’s true that in the 1950s many women felt they had to choose between children and career—and for good reason. Birth control was not a surefire thing, for one thing. And technology hadn’t advanced enough to offer women the gift of time. The reason modern women have a better shot at “having it all” isn’t because feminists made it happen. Life simply changed. Technological advances, along with The Pill, did more for the work/family conflict than ten boatloads of feminists could ever hope to do. The effects of The Pill are obvious: safe, reliable birth control means those who want smaller families can have them. And fewer children means more time for women to focus on other things they want to do. The effects of technology are also obvious: they made life at home less taxing. Laborsaving devices, the mechanization of housework, and the tech boom—via electricity, the sewing machine, the frozen food process, the automobile, the washing machine and dryer, the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner, computers, and the Internet—allowed women, generation by generation, to turn their attention away from the home and onto the marketplace.

The debate seems to come right out of the pages of Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky’s The Experts Speak: Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. —Editorial, The Boston Post, 1865 Fifty years hence . . . [w]e shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium. —Winston Churchill, 1932 Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. —Lord Kelvin, pioneer in thermodynamics and electricity, 1895 [By 1965] the deluxe open-road car will probably be 20 feet long, powered by a gas turbine engine, little brother of the jet engine. —Leo Cherne, editor-publisher of The Research Institute of America, 1955 Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances. —Lee Deforest, inventor of the vacuum tube, 1957 Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years. —Alex Lewyt, manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, 1955 The one prediction coming out of futurology that is undoubtedly correct is that in the future today’s futurologists will look silly.

I call Chris, and she doesn’t pick up. I’m about to call again, but at the last second I text John: Will you help me take out Genevieve? It takes a few minutes for him to write back. It would be my honor. John settles into the couch and leans forward, looking at me intently. “All right, so how do you want to do this? Do you want to flush her out? Go black ops on her?” I set down a glass of sweet tea in front of him. Sitting next to him, I say, “I think we have to run surveillance on her first. I don’t even know what her schedule is like.” And…if in winning this game, I find out her big secret, well, that would be a nice bonus. “I like where your head is at,” John says, tipping his head back and drinking his tea. “I know where they keep the emergency key. Chris and I had to pick up a vacuum cleaner from her house once. What if…what if I try to get under her skin? Like I could leave a note on her pillow that says I’m watching you. That would really creep her out.” John nearly chokes on his iced tea. “Wait, what would that even get you?” “I don’t know. You’re the expert at this!” “Expert? How am I an expert? If I was really any good, I’d still be in the game.” “There’s no way you could have known I’d be at Belleview,” I point out. “That was just your bad luck.

Subject of Thought Number of Times Thought Occurred per Year (in descending order) L. 580.0 Family 400.0 Brushing tongue 150.0 Earplugs 100.0 Bill-paying 52.0 Panasonic three-wheeled vacuum cleaner, greatness of 45.0 Sunlight makes you cheerful 40.0 Traffic frustration 38.0 Penguin books, all 35.0 Job, should I quit? 34.0 Friends, don't have any 33.0 Marriage, a possibility? 32.0 Vending machines 31.0 Straws don't unsheath well 28.0 Shine on moving objects 25.0 McCartney more talented than Lennon? 23.0 Friends smarter, more capable than I am 19.0 Paper-towel dispensers 19.0 "What oft was thought, but ne'er" etc. 18.0 People are very dissimilar 16.0 Trees, beauty of 15.0 Sidewalks 15.0 Friends are unworthy of me 15.0 Indentical twins separated at birth, studies of traits 14.0 Intelligence, going fast 14.0 Wheelchair ramps, their insane danger 14.0 Urge to kill 13.0 Escalator invention 12.0 People are very similar 12.0 "Not in my backyard" 11.0 Straws float now 10.0 DJ, would I be happy as one? 9.0 "If you can't get out of it, get into it" 9.0 Pen, felt-tip 9.0 Gasoline, nice smell of 8.0 Pen, ballpoint 8.0 Stereo systems 8.0 Fear of getting mugged again 7.0 Staplers 7.0 "Roaches check in, but they don't check out" 6.0 Dinner roll, image of 6.0 Shoes 6.0 Bags 5.0 Butz, Earl 4.0 Sweeping, brooms 4.0 Whistling, yodel trick 4.0 "You can taste it with your eyes" 4.0 Dry-cleaning fluid, smell of 3.0 Zip-lock tops 2.0 Popcorn 1.0 Birds regurgitate food and feed young with it 0.5 Kant, Immanuel 0.5

Let’s begin with this notion that society, not entrepreneurs, is primarily responsible for the success of an enterprise. What is the evidence for that? Actually there is very little. Consider the great inventions and innovations of the nineteenth century that made possible the Industrial Revolution and the rising standard of living that propelled America into the front ranks of the world by the mid-twentieth century. Who built the telegraph, and the great shipping lines, and the railroads, and the airplanes? Who produced the tractors and the machinery that made America the manufacturing capital of the world? Who built and then made available home appliances like the vacuum cleaner, the automatic dishwasher, and the microwave oven? More recent, who built the personal computer, the iPhone, and the software and search engines that power the electronic revolution? Entrepreneurs, that’s who. Government played a role, but that role was extremely modest. In the nineteenth century, the government did little more than grant licenses to companies to operate on the high seas or to go ahead and build railroads. As is often the case when there are government favors to be had, such licenses and contracts were attended with the usual lobbying, cajoling, and corruption. In the twentieth century, the government refused to help the Wright brothers because it had its own cockamamie idea about how airplanes should be built; the Wright brothers, on their own, actually went ahead and built one that could fly, and the government was so angry that for a long time it simply ignored this stunning new invention.

For most people moving is a tiring experience. When on the verge of moving out to a new home or into a new office, it's only natural to focus on your new place and forget about the one you’re leaving. Actually, the last thing you would even think about is embarking on a heavy duty move out clean. However, you can be certain that agents, landlords and all the potential renters or buyers of your old home will most definitely notice if it's being cleaned, therefore getting the place cleaned up is something that you need to consider. The process of cleaning will basically depend to things; how dirty your property and the size of the home. If you leave the property in good condition, you'll have a higher the chance of getting back your bond deposit or if you're selling, attracting a potential buyer. Below are the steps you need to consider before moving out. You should start with cleaning. Remove all screws and nails from the walls and the ceilings, fill up all holes and dust all ledges. Large holes should be patched and the entire wall checked the major marks. Remove all the cobwebs from the walls and ceilings, taking care to wash or vacuum the vents. They can get quite dusty. Clean all doors and door knobs, wipe down all the switches, electrical outlets, vacuum/wipe down the drapes, clean the blinds and remove all the light covers from light fixtures and clean them thoroughly as they may contain dead insects. Also, replace all the burnt out light bulbs and empty all cupboards when you clean them. Clean all windows, window sills and tracks. Vacuum all carpets or get them professionally cleaned which quite often is stipulated in the rental agreement. After you've finished the general cleaning, you can now embark on the more specific areas. When cleaning the bathroom, wash off the soap scum and remove mould (if any) from the bathroom tiles. This can be done by pre-spraying the tile grout with bleach and letting it sit for at least half an hour. Clean all the inside drawers and vanity units thoroughly. Clean the toilet/sink, vanity unit and replace anything that you've damaged. Wash all shower curtains and shower doors plus all other enclosures. Polish the mirrors and make sure the exhaust fan is free of dust. You can generally vacuum these quite easily. Finally, clean the bathroom floors by vacuuming and mopping. In the kitchen, clean all the cabinets and liners and wash the cupboards inside out. Clean the counter-tops and shine the facet and sink. If the fridge is staying give it a good clean. You can do this by removing all shelves and wash them individually. Thoroughly degrease the oven inside and out. It's best to use and oven cleaner from your supermarket, just take care to use gloves and a mask as they can be quite toxic. Clean the kitchen floor well by giving it a good vacuum and mop . Sometimes the kitchen floor may need to be degreased. Dust the bedrooms and living room, vacuum throughout then mop. If you have a garage give it a good sweep. Also cut the grass, pull out all weeds and remove all items that may be lying or hanging around. Remember to put your garbage bins out for collection even if collection is a week away as in our experience the bins will be full to the brim from all the rubbish during the moving process. If this all looks too hard then you can always hire a bond cleaner to tackle the job for you or if you're on a tight budget you can download an end of lease cleaning checklist or have one sent to you from your local agent. Just make sure you give yourself at least a day or to take on the job. Its best not to rush through the job, just make sure everything is cleaned thoroughly, so it passes the inspection in order for you to get your bond back in full.