Last week I wrote about the strange weather days and meeting up with an upright vacuum at the school bus stop.
This week is astoundingly different. The weather’s moved from brutally warm to what feels like April as I remember it in childhood—carrying summer’s urgent promises and winter’s dying whispers from breeze to breeze—like some mysterious changeling.
The vacuum’s gone as well.
I’ve wondered where it ended up. On some cross-country bus ride bearing stardust dreams of Hollywood in its lint collector? Or perhaps recuperating peacefully in a handyman’s workshop, awaiting repair and resale.
And while that upright vacuum, which I nicknamed Horatio, would be classified among the “Non-Living” in this chart, who’s to say what kind of life as we know it some writer couldn’t pump into its hose and wiring if so inclined?
For there truly are “more things in heaven and earth“ than are dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy—and by that I do not mean the company that sells bath, body, and skincare products. I mean the contents of this classification chart, and finding out how and why we fit into it.
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This post is dedicated to my dad, Neil, the Vacuum King,
who’s favorite cause has always been “Save a Rug.”
