As you may know, some people (we call them rednecks) have cars up on blocks in their front yards. Although we live in Louisiana, we do not have cars on blocks in the front yard. Actually, we have a couple of extra cars in our back yard, but not in the front, and they are not up on blocks. They are merely biding time there, fairly inconspicuously, unseen from the street. We would put them in the garage, but there is no room in the garage for cars. But although we don't have cars on blocks in the front yard, we have something better. Much better. We have vacuums in the foyer. As you can see from the photograph, we have an abundance of vacuum cleaners. In fact, we are rich in vacuum cleaners. How did this happen, you ask? Well, there's a fairly simple explanation to this question. You see, when my son and I moved in with my wife, I owned a vacuum. And she owned a vacuum. They were almost the same vacuum, one being a little newer than the other one. The one that I owned was approximately 6 years old, and still was a good vacuum. It did what vacuums are supposed to do, and did it well. Hers was a little less effective, so we decided to use mine. Hers was relegated to the garage (which is one reason that the garage does not have room for cars). We have been together for over 5 years. About a year ago, my vacuum started getting pretty tired. I mean, it was over 10 years old. It was ready for retirement. So we put it out on the curb for some southern recycling. (Why throw it away when it could find a home with someone who doesn't have such stringent vacuuming standards?) I'm sure that some of you are appalled that we would just put something out on the curb, but in Louisiana, this is a common practice. In fact, most of us do a little wagering on how long it will be before whatever we put out there is gone. Some things go very rapidly, some take a few hours. Put a hot water heater out there and you'd better move out of the way, they'll knock you down to get to it. Anyway, we started using her vacuum, which had been resting for four years. We used this vacuum for a little over a year, and it started looking like it was time to retire also. So we had to go vacuum shopping. I remembered that I was the one who had messed up with the towel shopping strategy, so I told my wife that SHE needed to pick out the new vacuum. I was not having any part in the selection part of this purchase, since I didn't have the best track record in this area. So we went to Wal-Mart and my wife picked out a vacuum that she thought would be acceptable. We marveled at how inexpensive vacuums had gotten in the 10 or so years since either one of us had bought one. We brought our new vacuum home, and I did something very uncharacteristic for me. I took it out of the box, and threw the box away. I NEVER do that! I save boxes for years (yet another reason the cars cannot live in the garage), just to be on the safe side. But not this one. We tried the vacuum out. For some reason, it left little trails of something. I'm not even sure what it was. White pet hair? Powder carpet freshener/deodorizer stuff from years of cleaning up behind stinky pets? I didn't know what it was. But I knew that the carpet looked terrible. We worked with the vacuum, tried different things, but nothing worked. And we discovered we didn't like bagless vacuums at all. Having no bag meant reaching up in the filter to get all of the pet hair out. That was just plain nasty. Well, since we threw the box away (my wife NEVER keeps any box, so I can say we-if I were not here, there would not be a single box in the garage, and maybe we could park those extra cars in it), we were stuck with this vacuum. But we HAD to have a vacuum that worked. With all of these pets, a vacuum is an essential appliance. (Come to think of it, I should have held out for a vacuum, when I got my toaster for converting my wife! Oh well, I guess hindsight is 20/20.) So we went back to the store to look for a different vacuum. My wife picked out another vacuum. It is a very pretty vacuum cleaner, but you know, pretty doesn't get your floor clean. This vacuum did the same thing as the other vacuum that we had just purchased. Is it that we are all incompetent at vacuuming? I would like to think that we have a little sense. At least enough sense to vacuum. But obviously not. I'm sure there is something that we are doing wrong. But I have no idea what it is. So, we're back to the old vacuum. The other two sit there. One waits to go back to the store (I kept the box this time). The other waits for some destiny that we have not figured out yet. And the one that was pressed back into service just when it thought it was reaching retirement is not happy. If anyone reading this knows why these vacuums are not vacuuming correctly (I guess I could call that Dyson guy, he seems to know a lot about vacuums), please let me know. I don't really want a fourth vacuum in our foyer.