The Professor Buys a Dyson
Like most people, there are some domestic tasks I simply detest, some I don’t like but tolerate, and some I love. For example, I just seem to have a mental block against cleaning toilets. I don’t enjoy doing the washing and ironing, but I do them. But there are two domestic tasks I love: gym finishing the floors and vacuuming.
If you were born relatively recently, that is, in the era of polyurethane (originally developed by Hitler’s favorite chemical company I.G. Farben in the 1930s, but not used extensively for sealing surfaces until the 1990s), you have no idea what I am talking about. In ancient history, that is to say, the 1970s when I was in college, if you had wooden floors, you had to periodically strip the old wax off with a chemical and circular scrubbing machine, apply new polish, and buff it out with a different pad on the same machine. Since all the furniture had to be moved out of the way anyway, every few years, you took off the sealing layer of the wood, reapplied a new coat, then put down wax and polished it the same scrubbing machine. The process literally took days. It would turn your arms into jelly running the floor polisher. But there must have been some powerful hallucinogens in those chemicals, because the aroma of fresh sealer and wax was simply magical. There is nothing like, at the end of the process, a floor with a honey-hued glass-like finish, as one step lets you slide down the entire hallway in your socks. Today, it takes a couple of minutes with some squirt bottle filled with some stuff made in Sweden, and a mop, to do the same job a few minutes, and frankly, where is the romance in that?
The second thing I love to do is vacuuming. It involves a fascinating and complex piece of equipment to use, and there is something very satisfying in seeing those dust bunnies disappear. After my trusty Electrolux canister vacuum finally gave up the ghost after 25 years of service (if truth be told, I finally ran out of the life-time supply of vacuum bags my ex-wife gave me as part of our divorce settlement), I thought it was time to get a new appliance. It should come as no surprise to people who know me that I began with the most expensive vacuum cleaner I could find. My thought process is that expensive is usually better than cheap, this is something I will probably keep for another 25 years, and basically, I never want to have to buy another one in this lifetime.
My eyes (actually my web browser) settled on one of the high technology creations by Sir James Dyson. Since he is a genius, albeit unrelated to the famous physicist and equally famous venture capitalist, this must be the ultimate kick-ass vacuum cleaner in existence. I may never be able to own a Rolls Royce, but I can afford the Rolls Royce of vacuum cleaners. And since it is bagless, there will never be something to run out of, and thus cause me to buy another one. A few quick clicks, and my new Dyson was on its way to me.
It arrived. I have to say, it was huge disappointment straight out of the box. This thing cost a small fortune, yet was made of the cheapest looking plastic toy material I had ever set my eyes upon. It came with virtually no attachments. There really wasn’t a manual (I probably wouldn’t have read it anyway), just one of those pieces of paper with undecipherable petroglyphs not unlike the instructions that come with Ikea flatpack furniture. I almost broke it trying to figure out what combination of buttons and latches to press to empty the canister.
But over time, I began to like it. It did have an amazing ability to suck dust. The cyclone motor is really innovative. And while the hose was kind of short for many tasks, it was really clever how it extended out and changed the airflow so the attachments get the vacuum instead of the main pickup.
Over the last few weeks, however, the Dyson began to malfunction. The vacuum fell off. Sometimes it wouldn’t even start. I tried to take it apart and put it back together, jam the on-off buttons, etc., but to no effect. I am thinking, how did my Rolls Royce of vacuum cleaners break so soon?
I went to the Dyson web site hoping to find a local repair shop. But I noticed under the frequently asked questions, a section on what to do if the vacuum falls off. Clicking on this yielded a YouTube video describing how to clean one of the filters in the machine. Filter cleaning? What does this have to do with motors or suck? I figured the link was broken.
But what the heck, I gave it a try. Run water through the filter, massage it with your fingers, and let it dry out (for 12 hours!). Replace it. And MIRACLE! Vacuum actually returned! The fellow who invented this thing really was a genius.
Sometimes technology actually does represent a step forward. No wonder Sir Dyson is worth billions of dollars.
