Spic and Span

So, when Jeff and I came downstairs this morning the state of the floors assaulted me.  Ok, I am not living in squalor but for me the floors were dirty.  Actually they have been bugging me for a couple of days.  You know how you know something is there but you can magically avert your notice of it until one day it is like a brick hit you in the head?  Yeah, that happened to me this morning.  Vacuuming and washing floors is not my favorite chore.  I just don't like it.  There are so many cleaning activities that I don't mind that most people dislike.  For example bathrooms.  Cleaning the bathrooms doesn't bother me in the slightest.  The trick is to do it often enough so they don't get gross to the point that cleaning them becomes a major pain.  Dusting is another chore that I actually like.  Maybe it's the fumes from the can of polish.  Just kidding, but there is something pleasant about that lemony fresh scent.  Now don't get me wrong.  I love the smell of a clean floor too.  It's just the cleaning of it that is the deterrent for me.  It's one of those things in life that you hate doing, but are happy with the end result.  I am sure I could list a dozen or more examples of that!
Now I keep the area around Jeff's chair at the dining table clean.  You have to.  Living with a toddler means that food will end up on the floor at most if not all meals.  So that means I use the dust buster there every day.  Don't judge!  The floor is getting clean, do we really need to debate the how it gets there?  It's the dragging of the big vacuum that is just annoying.  Even that isn't so bad, more an inconvenience than a real bother.  Of course I do have to carry it downstairs to use it.  I used to have a vacuum on both floors of the house.  So one would think that I vacuumed more then, right?  Au contraire my friend.  Now I just have a legitimate excuse as to why I can put off that chore :)
Lately I have been swearing at said vacuum for its lack of performance.  I mean seriously it has one job to do.  Logic would dictate that it would do that job well.  So not only do I hate to vacuum, now the machine isn't even working up to par.  It's a wonder I use the damn thing at all.  That being said I couldn't look at the state of the floors anymore.  I decided that when Jeff went down for his nap this morning I would drag the stupid thing downstairs and vacuum the whole first floor.  Right away it's not picking up the littlest of things.  A pebble here, a dried piece of who knows what there.  Ok, maybe its the tile I say.  Trying to give it the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe the uneven surface of the tile is giving this machine a challenge.  So after pushing the pebble or whatever around for a while I finally bend down and pick it up.  Which to me is totally against the whole purpose of using the vacuum.  If I wanted to bend down and pick stuff up off the floor I would do that without having lugged the damn machine around.  Did I mention it's even more of a pain because I have to take out the child protectors from the outlets to plug it in!  Aaaarrgh. 
Anyway, there I am vacuuming and picking things up off the floor with my hands when I decide it's good enough.  The area rug looks good.  It will be at least a day before Jeff is picking up fluff and handing it to me. A game he loves to play because every now and then he will decide to quickly insert said fluff into his mouth.  Then it becomes a wrestling match worthy of the wwf to get it out of his mouth.  As I was wrapping the cord around the cord holder I decide that maybe I will look under the vacuum to see how it looks.  This is what I saw. Look for picture under blog title spic and span 2.
Are you freaking kidding me????  No wonder the damn thing isn't working.  Apparently my hair and other assorted sundries get wrapped around the brushes instead of being sucked up into the wind tunnel that this vacuum so proudly boasts.  After sitting on the floor with a pair of scissors for 15 minutes besides having a sore butt I got the stupid thing all cleaned out.  Nothing like making the chore more of a chore!  So the vacuum gets redemption and I get to continue to lug it around.  Maybe I will show this Hoover and get a Dyson.  Bet that would show it who's boss. Haha