Some of life’s most aggravating things happen in the privacy of one’s own home, thank goodness.

Our number one aggravation involves the vacuum cleaner. Or, in our case, cleaners, plural. We have been married long enough now to have owned uncounted vacuum cleaners with the current number under our roof being three! Each one has its own set of intricacies and depending on the user, they each bring out the worst in us as we attempt to bring order out of the chaos that we call home.

The tank-type particularly annoys Ol’ Bill as it wants to snag itself on doorways as he is moving from one room to another. We paid a lot of money for this baby. It has separate heads for carpets and hard floors and was touted as one of the best on the market – 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, a much publicized upright model promised to darn near flatten the bed’s mattress sucking all the dead skin cells and mites invisibly imbedded on our sleeping surface. Yuck! We bought it and, truthfully, I don’t remember ever really using it on the bed. I am more interested in getting the dirt we track into the house under control. It’s a pretty good sweeper, but has no attachments for draperies or furniture. My hoisting it onto the back cushions of the couch is not a pretty picture.

Our most recent vacuum cleaner acquisition is another upright with a dial for carpets from shag to no-nap to hard floor surfaces. Plus it has attachments for furniture and drapes. However, the hose is only about four feet long. Luckily we don’t live in one of those houses with windows two stories tall, but still. Two of its most aggravating features are the skimpy electrical cord that barely lets you vacuum the entire bedroom without unplugging and re-plugging into another socket to finish the job and – we discovered – the filter that stops dead when it gets dirty. No warning light or buzzer. It just quits in the middle of the task at hand and won’t restart until the filter is washed and dried, a process that doesn’t happen overnight. I might mention that there wasn’t a word of this on the outer packaging when I bought this little sucker, so to speak.

Once the box was opened, there was no returning it to the store for any reason, according to the manual. They might have mentioned its “features” like the short electric cord. They could have praised its 12’ wonder, making you think – hey, that’s plenty. They might have included a spare filter so at least you could finish the task at hand while the other filter is drying over the furnace register or with the help of the hair dryer.

My daughter has a very expensive vacuum cleaner that lets you see all the dirt and dog hair as you pick it up. The one thing I envy about her sweeper is the electric cord that lets them clean the entire main floor surface, kitchen, dining, entry, office and family room, never once having to unplug and re-plug! I’ll have to ask about attachments to help get the dog hair out of the furniture. And mites out of the beds.

I remember a friend being so completely frustrated by her sweeper, she “accidently” let it fall down the basement steps. I think her foot might have played a part in its demise. Housecleaning can bring out the very worst in even the nicest people. Needless to say, cleaning day at our house is not where you want to be. The language would embarrass a truck driver.