Do you ever feel like you are on a practical joke show? You know, one where so many things are going wrong in such an exaggerated manner that you have to wonder if it could possibly occur outside of rigged television? Well today I had a moment where I wondered as much. See, my van looks as though our entire party of five actually lives in it. Complete with back up outfits that are dirty because they have already been swapped in a crunch, stacks of ads that never made it in from the mailbox, toys for long road trips kept in case of tantrums on the road, and crumbs everywhere. In fact, I even had shelving, a tv, and dvd player that were given to me which had never made it in the house. So I decided it was well past the deadline to clean this mess out. The first step was to bribe the 9 year old with a trip to the movies in an effort to get help. Next I pulled out the center set of seats and removed all unrecognizable fragments of candy stuck to the carpet and drug the vacuum out to finish the task. This is where it went awry.

Bouncing back two weeks ago, the 9 year old was cleaning his room and busted the vacuum. Luckily the next week I was fortunate enough to pick up a used one off of my local freecycler. Unfortunately it was free because it gets clogged and can’t seem to maintain suction. So after dragging it out and rigging it to stretch, it was off to option number two, the free vacuums at the local car wash. Leaving the middle seats in the front yard planning on rushing home, and hoping the sprinklers were not set to turn on, I pull up ready to finish the job. Well the first vacuum was out of order, so I moved to a different stall, where the next one was missing the tip and wouldn’t pick up fuzz, on to the next one which excitedly had the tip and turned on, but wouldn’t work either. Hmmm. Beginning to wonder if someone was out to sabotage my attempt at driving a clean vehicle, and determined not to be taken down, I headed back home.

At this point I am thinking that even though our original vacuum is squealing really loud from what would seem to be a busted fan, it at least still has decent suction, so I drag er’ out to get it all done and wouldn’t you know it, I start smelling a really foul scent similar to burning rubber, or rather burning plastic. Which is precisely what it was. As I turn back to see why it is so strong, I find that the 5th vacuum I have attempted to use to clean out the car, is now on fire. This has got to be bloopers practical jokes right?