Last Friday night I looked down at my floor and thought “My God this carpet looks gross and needs to be vacuumed sooner than later.” My vacuum has been failing me for a while and I knew something had to be done to fix the thing. I am incredibly smart but extremely unhandy. AmandaJean and Stanley tools do not go together. Well that was the case until Charlie showed up on my door step with a set of pink tools.

The pink tools sat unopened in my hall closet, just waiting for me to have a moment of I can do this. At first I couldn’t find my tools and ripped the closet apart looking for them. Then I looked up there they were far above my head pushed to the back of the top shelf. Reaching on my tippy toes I managed to pull them down along with a few other things that fell on my head. I was determined to fix my damn vacuum. The muppet had a “What the fuck is mom doing” look on his face and quietly sat under the coffee table.

Armed with my screw driver and a swift bout of determination I took on operation fix the damn vacuum. I did the obvious first and emptied the bin thingy. That didn’t help so then my next step was to check the hepa filter and still no suction. Any normal person would have checked the brush head. I am not normal after a few minutes of swearing I did just that. Holy crap there was my problem. The brush head was covered with string fur, and what ever else I managed to pick up with it. Wrestling with the brush head and cutting it loose from its prison still did not help with the suction. Tears began to fall and I was starting to give up.

Give up to the point where I wanted to throw the thing out and run to Target to get a shiny new vacuum. Giving up is never an option for me so I took a few deep breaths and felt the hose. The hose was hard and I had a feeling that this isn’t normal. Through my tears I began to take the hose off the vacuum as I was doing this clumps of dust fell to the floor. Soon I had it completely detached from the vacuum and it took me about 40 more minutes to remove the rest of the crap from the hose. I put the hose up to my eye much like a telescope I could see clear to the muppet. To me this was good and I set into the task of putting my vacuum back together.

The sound I heard was the sweet noise of suction as I ran the vacuum across the living room floor. My floor looked less dingy and my God I was finally able to vacuum up the fake needles from my christmas tree. Who knew fake trees could shed so much. I cracked a smile and that smile led to absurd laughter. I thought to my self ” I AmandaJean, just fixed my fucking vacuum all by myself.” I actually did something handy and almost feel brave enough to tackle a hammer. Well maybe not so much, baby steps. I need to pace myself on this fix it adventure.

Fixing a vacuum may not seem that big to you. However to me it is huge. I am normally a girl who runs to someone for fix it help. Or I throw the item out and head to Target for a shiny new one. Here I was covered in dust from head to toe vacuuming my floor. To me my vacuum is no longer just a vacuum, it is a symbol that I am capable of doing things on my own. That as long as I take a deep breath, pause and believe in myself I can do anything.