Shop-Vac

I’ve always appreciated an orderly living environment (so long as the word “always” is taken to mean “always as a post-adolescent and adult”), but actual cleaning has never captured my attention quite as strongly. I can remember a time in college, as I was shopping at Wal-mart in preparation for my first semester living off campus (that being my 9th and final semester), I ran into a few friends from college. All of these friends were of the female persuasion. So I ask them to look over what I’ve got in the cart and tell me if I’m forgetting anything crucial to apartment living. Approximately 8 tenths of a second later, one of them pipes up and says, “Well, you don’t have a toilet bowl cleaner.” To which I smoothly replied, “Yeah, but I’m only going to be there for 6 months.”

For whatever reason, however, I’ve always wanted a clean garage. Oh, it’s always been organized and kept up, but how do you get rid of all those dead bugs and such that clutter the corners in behind stuff? Enter my new Shop-Vac. Last week, inspiration struck and I headed down to Harbor Freight Tools (which, if you’ve never seen one, has fantastic prices on tools and other cool stuff that belong in a garage) and bought a discontinued 1.5 HP wet/dry Shop-Vac for a song. Though sick as a dog, I have been out in that garage every opportunity since vacuuming, and today I finished.

Absolutely amazing. For the first time in my 10 years of home ownership, I have a clean garage. Not simply organized and swept, but actually clean (or as clean as bare concrete which houses two automobiles can get). I was tempted to set up a folding chair and write this entry from the garage, but it was getting a bit chilly. But let me promise you that prior to Mr. SV I’d have had no such urges.

2 Replies to “Shop-Vac”

  1. Jay, I have a vague memory of you as a kid being rather “unkidlike” in your desire to have a neat environment, to the point that I think it was a source of conflict between you and your brother, with whom you shared a bedroom. Then, if I recall correctly, you suddenly seemed to regret the error of your ways and lost your neat streak — a sad day for me. Am I dreaming? Anyway, I’m happy about your shop-vac!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *