A Dyson, "It never loses suction"!

This is mindless humor I suppose so don't read this expecting any grand epiphanies or light bulbs to go on!

I was vacuuming my floor with my dear Dyson (which I got from my mom and dad as a Christmas gift a few years ago) and it was sounding quite muffled. It never lost suction however! BUT it did sound very different than normal. I do vacuum a whole lot so I am very familiar with what it sounds like normally. So I decided to empty the barely filled container for a starting point in diagnosis. Aha! The thing was stopped up tight right where the hose goes into the container. I stuck my hand in the hole and pulled out one wad of densely packed dust and then another. Ow! Ok that hurt. So let's do it again dummy! I stick my hand in the hole and, "Ow" so I pull out whatever is causing the pain. Once again I stick my hand in and through the pain I pull out another piece of whatever it was. I was holding it-- hurting-- and examining it. This piece was about twice as big as the first piece. It was about an inch in width and about 3 inches long. "What is that... oh, it is cactus.”I dropped the cactus into the trash and then looked at my hand. It looked like a miniature porcupine had attacked me and won. I, holding my hand in the air, went out to flag Ernie down as he was mowing the grass (yes this is my job, but I suppose he needs some stress relief too!). He came in and carefully pulled out as many of the cactus thorns as he could. I couldn't believe that as he plucked each one it hurt worse than the original stab. I found out they have little barbs on them and they get stuck nicely. It didn't help that this particular cactus has been dead for many years and the thorns are so fine that when he would pluck them they broke off at the base. Now I have many tiny, fine little thorns embedded in my thumb and ring finger on my right hand.

When I asked Ernie if he vacuumed up the cactus he said he thought he probably had. It was on top of the fridge when he cleaned it off to pull it out and do our floors. This cactus is one he dug up at the beach when I was pregnant with Olivia. It died a few months later and got put on top of the fridge. As I finished cleaning out the hole (much more careful this time) I found the object which caused the whole stop up-- a sea shell (a clam shell to be more precise). It was with the cactus.

Who sucks up a sea shell in a Dyson? Oh well it never lost suction.