Years ago, when dear SDXB was living with me — or maybe shortly after he moved into his own palace — I took it into my pretty little head that I must have a shop vac. “Oh, no no no, little woman,” said he. “You don’t need a shop vac.”
Well, of course forthwith I flew to Home Depot and bought myself a fine shop vac.
And…it was one of the best buys ever for the Happy Homeowner. I can’t even count the amazing messes it’s cleaned up, from leveling Himalayan mounds of leaves to cleaning up after various repairmen to inhaling broken glass out of the garbage disposal. Today it pretty much outdid itself.
Yesh. This morning was going pretty well until I had the temerity to fix breakfast (of all the nerve!). I don’t even remember what I reached for, but whatever, when my hand moved across the countertop it brushed against a wine bottle, which toppled over and exploded all over the kitchen floor!
Holy MACKEREL! I’d only used the wine with a couple of meals, and so the bottle was about 3/4 full. A lake of red wine sprouted rivers and flowed under the kitchen cabinets, under the dishwasher, under the refrigerator…and the glass! You never SAW so much broken glass!
Had to haul the dogs outside before they cut up their feet. They didn’t want to go and so ran around and shot back in the dog door. Had to close that and drag them out again.
Fortunately, I had something on my feet — a pair of Tevas. Now their squishy rubber tread is full of glass shards — I have NO idea how to get that stuff out of them, but there was not a thing I could do about it at the time.
After picking up as much of the glass as I could and mopping up wine with paper towels to some extent, I dragged the shop vac in and tried to get as much of the tiny, sharp pieces of glass and the puddles of wine up off the floor.
M’hijito borrowed the crevice tool several years ago and, alas, disappeared it. Last time I tried to replace it, I bought the wrong size, returned it to HD, and shortly lost interest in that mission.
So I couldn’t do a very good job at trying to suck the wine out from under the cabinets (the previous owner, lovingly known as Satan, installed them but OF COURSE did not caulk along the bottom).
In the process, I tripped over the cord, which was hanging knee-high because it was plugged into one of the countertop outlets, and almost fell on the floor, knocking over the machine and busting the attachment connection apart. Fortunately it went back together. Scrubbed up as much of the wine as I could, on hands and knees, with a strong, hot solution of Simple Green. Hauled out the wet mop and scrubbed the floor again with clean water.
Realized sucking wine into the shop vac was going to ruin the filter at best (shop vac filters: not cheap!) and possibly the machine itself, since this was very, very, VERY cheap wine and had a bouquet best described as “Early Flophouse.” Carried my food and coffee out to the backyard, dodging Cassie as she flew inside. Chased Cassie down, picked her up, and carried her back outside.
All of this before I’d had so much as a sip of coffee. Luvleee.
The kitchen no longer stinks like a winery. Despite being crevice-tool-impaired, the shop vac seems to have sucked up most of the wine.
But the vacuum itself? Phewie!!
It’s dry on the inside — full of broken glass, of course, but dry. So I figure it absorbed the wine into its filter. This has been an exceptionally long day, and it’s threatening to rain, neither of which circumstances incline me to clean out the shop-vac. So it’s stinking up the garage, which already reeks of gag-me-with-a-fork “essential oils” from the “organic” (snark!) insecticide used to kill off a new hive of Africanized bees that took up residence under the deck.
At first I was afraid vacuuming wine into the thing would wreck it. But on inspection, I think it’s OK — just smelly. So I guess when I get a minute — which probably will happen next Monday — I’ll dump the glass into the garbage, hose out the interior, and then buy a new filter and, with any luck, maybe find a new crevice tool that fits.
Much better than having to buy a new one! Wouldn’t be without it.
Bottle breaking from Kad Nouar on Vimeo.