I spent a large portion of the weekend cleaning, as I always do, but my area of special focus this week was the floors. And that's where I had my epiphany.
As I swept all the little dust bunnies (read: "clumps of cat hair covered in dust"), I knew, with a tiny hint of exasperation, that the little kitty hair tumbleweeds would be there in the morning-- no! by evening, even! And it occurred to me that the great analogy of home ownership is Sisyphus and his rock. However, in my house it's the bunnies. We roll that stone all the way to the top, only to have it roll right back over us on its way back down.
In fact, there's not much in this house-- or in life, for that matter-- that's done once and finished. Everything begets other projects, problems and perturbations.
I suppose it makes me feel better that I am at least able to anticipate the repetition. Can you imagine how much more disappointing it would be if we were shocked every single time the rock rolled back downhill?
4 comments:
Woot.com has Roomba 415s today. Just sayin'.
(I'm peeved, too, because that's what I just paid for a 410 a week ago.)
Karen-- Do you love it? Do you use it on hardwood? I know I'd love watching the cats scramble out of its path, but I'm still skeptical...Is it better than Swiffer?
Yup, can't live without it. I still sweep some, just because it has a small bin (and will get dog hair wrapped around its brushes), but it can't be beat for zooming under the couches and such.
We don't have real hardwood, just Pergo, but it actually does better on it than the laminate because it doesn't skid as much, so it doesn't get as hung up driving over rugs (the only one that's given us trouble is Mom's black patterned rugs: it sees the black as an "edge" and won't drive onto it. You can fix that by disabling edge detection, but then you have to keep it from driving off the stairs with a virtual wall or physical barrier, and we've never done it).
Our dogs ignore it, and my mother-in-law's giant cat plays with it, and has been known to turn it on or off by sitting on top, or to flip it over (fortunately, it has sensors for that, and doesn't keep running).
We've bought, um... (counts on fingers) seven, I think. Maybe eight. Some as gifts, others just because we have people who say "If you see one on Woot buy it for my and I'll pay you back!"
My Mil's Roomba died twice in just a couple of months.
I laughed at the picture, cause I sweep up tons of dog hair and dust. All the time. A small dogs worth every 3 days.
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