“While I admit to being a party in the adventure shown below I believe my role was highly exaggerated under artistic license by the writer. As much as I love him he sometimes gets carried away when writing. He probably won’t tell you that we were in Florida at the time and the humidity was driving us both crazy.” – Merlin

I decided to vacuum tonight. In hindsight it was probably not the best idea. I switched the vacuum on and the cat immediately panicked and headed for the door at 100mph. My dog, Merlin, is barking and jumping on and off the couch at 100mph.The Shop-Vac motor is roaring and the suction is at 100mph. I am trying to open the front door to let the cat out and the Shop-Vac nozzle has glued itself to a cushion and is trying to devour it. Merlin is still barking and leaping around the room like a Gazelle.Success! I manage to get the cat out while juggling the vacuum hose but now the nozzle has attached itself to the couch. I manage to save the couch from being sucked into the Shop-Vac and flushed with this minor victory I tackle the bedroom.

I start on Merlin’s pillow and this drives him even crazier. He is leaping on and off the bed with ever increasing speed and his barking is becoming more frantic. He then decides to attack the nozzle which I cleverly move out of the way and straight on to the quilt which is now in danger of being eaten by this voracious Shop-Vac. I wrestle about a foot of quilt out of the machine which is now screaming at 200mph and as I yank out the last bit the machine attaches itself to Merlin’s pillow. You can just imagine what Merlin thought about this new turn of events. After switching off the beast and calming Merlin a degree of order was restored.

Now this is where a sane rational man might cut his losses and call it a night. Unfortunately I don’t qualify for this group. I foolishly decided to give the bathroom a quick once over. I rolled the vacuum towards the bathroom and at this point I should have recognized more trouble was coming by the look in Merlin’s eyes and the fact that he was crouching in the attack position. This was happening and the machine hadn’t been switched on yet. I blame my lack of awareness on the late hour and several cups of coffee. 

The bathroom is tiny and there is barely enough room for one person but somehow it ended up with me, Merlin and the screaming Shop-Vac all squeezed in together. To make matters worse, Merlin and I were trapped behind the evil machine which had blocked our exit. Once again you can imagine how Merlin reacted to that unfortunate situation. I decided now was the time to accept defeat and switch the machine off and hide it in the back bedroom.After all the drama and excitement I took Merlin for a walk (at midnight) to calm him down and now he is sleeping next to me while I type. All is well in the world.

P.S. The cat came back the next day.

P.P.S. “A perfect ending would have been the vacuum cleaner swallowing the cat” -Merlin

Neville Ryan

EarthGallery.com