When things go right. Yes. Really, it does happen...

A few months ago, after moving house, we found that our old vacuum cleaner was just a bit on the completely knackered side of being useable. After many attempts to revive the poor old thing, it decided to give us a message loud and clear. First, its wheels broke off, then the handle snapped in two and the pressure valve busted as well. I think it was trying to tell us something along the lines of ‘I’ve had it, please let me rest or fix me up’. So, message received well and clear, but with the financial pressures associated with moving house, there really wasn’t an easy solution to the problem….or so I thought.

Wind forward a week and the vacuuming is not done. Brand new house, nice area, happy with all the added space and comfort, but my floors were starting to become like deserts, with ‘tumbleweeds’ of hair billowing across the hallway. Yeeeek! (ok,...it wasn’t that bad but it felt like it)

Sweeping does help, it really does, and I did this as much as I could, but there is something about that high powered suction that just makes modern house feel ‘cleaned’. Dear Husband was endlessly complaining, complaining, complaining about the useless vacuum, and the huge wet/dry vac that I’d borrowed from my sister being too cumbersome to move about easily. Flatly refusing to clean with it at all. I diligently cleaned with the enormous wet/dry vac machine. But it was so big, and heavy. Then the foot mechanism cracked and broke and it kept falling off each time I lifted it onto a new patch of carpet. Finally, on my way out to shop, alone one morning I began to again consult myself as to how I was going to afford a new vac and keep all the expenses under control. (last year had been financially ‘delicate’ due to my husband’s illness).

I ended up just throwing the whole issue ‘upwards’. I said “Please, Heaven, just handle it for me. Please just find a way to make the problem of the vacuum cleaners resolve and sort it out, because I don’t know what to do and I’ve got too much else to get on with”. Then as a side request, probably just to ‘back up’ the first request, I asked for AAM (Arch Angel Michael) to intercede and help out too. “Please just fix the vacuum situation as best you can, I can’t deal with it anymore”. And I left it. Went shopping. Came home.

Next day, we were all going out, and just as a side thought, or perhaps the recognition of a planted message, I said to my husband, ‘hey lets put the vacuum cleaners in the boot and see if I can find that repair place that I told you about’. It was near where we were going, so I thought it must be the answer. We get to the address of the repair shop and it is not there,... anywhere,... at all. OK. So, we go to the shopping centre nearby. Lo’ and behold, there is a vacuum chain store there too. I duck in. This is one of those shops where you can wait half and hour to just say hello to the counter staff. It was Saturday morning, the shop is packed, so I asked my husband to take the children for a stroll while I waited. There were at least 10 people in the shop and a big queue.
Within five minutes of being in there, the queue depleted, the people vanished, and I found myself talking to BOTH of the counter staff about the (two) broken vacuum cleaners. And if by magic, well of course it WAS magic, both of these people went about finding parts and repaired both cleaners there on the spot, for the grand total of $32.00 something-or-other! We were in there alone for nearly the entire time the repairs were done. As soon as it was completed, the shop began to fill up again. :) We smiled and thanked the staff for all their help, put our vacs in the shopping trolley and took them back to the boot.

And of course I can hear you say exactly what my Sister said to me …
“Why didn’t you ask for the LOTTO numbers as well!!!?”