The Dyson, the rubber belt, and me

How much do I hate thee?
Let me count the ways.

Today’s object of loathing is the Dyson. What a ghastly contraption it is.
A bit of show offy yellow and grey does not a good hoover make and Mr D needs telling. And why do I bother eschewing my slutty ways in favour of a bit of hearty tidying when all that I receive for my troubles is a nasty session grappling with its absurd undercarriage? Where is the justice in that? Is this really what my life has come to?

But, the floor being covered, to the point of carpet no longer easy to identify, swathed so with the detritus of plumbers and tilers and electricians and carpenters, all painful underfoot, prompted me, finally to think that I should clean it up. Bleeding feet are a bad price to pay and I feared the school nurse becoming involved.

So out comes the wretched Dyson and I lug it upstairs, barking shin with same in ungainly attempt to struggle the thing through the anti-puppy stairgate. (This is loathed object number 2: Lolly refuses to accept its symbolic presence as a barrier to her eager bounding or romps on the bed and we, that’s us and 85 tradesmen up down, up down, have to click it, finger-snapping tight, each and every time we stumble upstairs: it won an award, lots of awards if you can believe that so many are there to be handed out to stairgates, but my it’s a pain in the *rse, and I bet that men were on the judging panel.)

I plugged the beast in and pushed it around feeling fed up but virtuous, ignoring – fool! – the clatter of inappropriate debris choking it up until the inevitable screaming whining noise and stench of burnt rubber, forced me to turn it off, de-plug it and go in search of a kitchen knife to rip it apart. Yes, yet again, the black band had sheared in half.

Recently a plumber and I had fixed it in a bizarre version of Dyson sex, with me the lusty bloke and him the virginal maid. He had pulled gruntingly on the ring, I had huffed and puffed over the roller trying to shove it into the hole whether the hole wanted it or not: who *ucking cares, just take it and shut up. We both sweated and got a bit red in the face, me the redder when I twigged what a metaphor for unpleasant sexual activity it could be called. Finally, we triumphed and sat back panting for some post-coital chat, him congratulating me on my patience, me thanking him for his. All we needed was a couple of fags and for him to roll over and fall asleep.
Instead, he went upstairs – to the bathroom I hasten to add, where he more or less lives these days – and did manly things to pipes until Lolly burst in (through the portals of insufficiently-closed, award-winning stairgate) and licked him on the ear.
“Oh!” he cried, sweetly stroking her, “I thought it was you!”
Meaning me.
SQUEAL!!!

It went again, the belt, and my competent Swiss friend did it last Friday, using her feet: very European and a surprise to my chaste English expectations. I watched and learnt.
And then it went again this morning. So, short of a plumber (who’s moved out and who can blame him) and shy a pair of Swiss feet, I used my own and managed it. All very Little Red Hen. Until I turned the *ugger on again and there was that familiar smell of burning (so hysterical and self-important) and it seemed that my smuggery had not been rewarded with Job Well Done but the usual inept failure to follow through again. I tussled with the thing once more and burnt my fingers on the spindle, tucked high, high within the bowels of the machine. A flurry of expletives – naturally – followed and a little light but necessary kicking, just to the point where it won’t actually hurt and it now lies on the bedroom floor and I’m not sure which is the most defeated, me or it.