Catastrophes happen every day, everywhere. But at my house on Mishap Place, they seem to find a home more often than not. One particular episode that stands out in my mind more than the others is known as the “Vacuum Cleaner Incident” throughout my neighborhood.
I live in a quiet community, a neighborhood like most that have weekend barbecues, the sound of children laughing and playing up and down the streets, gossip that will be told from neighbor to neighbor until by the end the rumor is something completely different, and of course in my house at 171 Mishap Place, the occasional disaster. For those involved, this has become something like a nightmare. And although this happened some time ago, every once in a while, I can still hear and see neighbors point toward my house saying, “There! That’s where it happened!”
It was Saturday morning, deep in the summer, late July. My wife, Nancy had to work to complete the project that she was involved with, and would not return until that afternoon. I told her goodbye with a kiss at the door, also that I would clean the house and grocery shop while she was away so that we could spend Sunday chore free and just relax.
It was early when she left, but I knew as the day progressed, the local Kroger would soon be busy. So, without much delay I got that part of my assurance to Nancy out of the way. I then took a short lingering look at our house, which practically stays clean itself. One of the major rules of our home is that everything has a place and should be in that place. And of course the second rule: No excuses, no exceptions. Anyone who has read my tale “Son Save Yourself, I’ll Go Down With the Meatloaf” knows what these two rules mean.
I paused for a quick thinking that maybe I could get away without cleaning it. But then I thought better of it. I knew that when Nancy got home, she wouldn’t look at the house as quickly as I did. Her eye for detail is better than mine, and it shows when she cleans instead of me. But I least had to make an effort.
I wish I hadn’t.
Our home is a split-level house with 3 floors that are all carpeted. I started with the three bedrooms on the top floor after cleaning the master bath. This in itself went with no problems. A quick dusting of the furniture, and the upstairs was done.
Downstairs in the living room, I began to vacuum. The CD player was blaring the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me UP”, and everything was fine. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! And then…
I don’t know what happened. The vacuum bag busted with a loud POW! Dust particles went everywhere all over the walls, furniture, floor, and me.
I began coughing, and started to shake the dust off of me. Next, I lifted the vacuum cleaner, and dropped it on the floor. Why I did this, I still don’t know.
The cord came out of the outlet, sparking as it hit the floor. A single line of fire ignited on the carpet. Oops!
This in itself would not have been that bad. But the box of fireworks on the floor, well you guessed it. The contents of the box started to dispense its arsenal and irrupted with a Boom! I have never heard anything so loud, so deafening in all my life. Not even the CD player could over power the sound coming from what sat on the living room rug. Bottle rockets shot upward, sideways, and anyway ruining everything in it’s path. As I looked onward at the war raging in the living room, I was glad that Nancy was at work. She’d have a fit if she saw this.
Then a large bottle rocket made a whooshing sound, flew over the couch and crashed through the front window landing in a pine tree in our front yard. Sparks caught the dry pine needles and soon begin to blaze.
Neighbors soon flooded the street and looked on at the tragedy happening. Another rocket flew out the window and took out a transformer leaving the neighborhood without power. Next the final rocket crashed through the remaining glass and hit a telephone pole.
I know what your thinking: Why didn’t he do something to stop all of this?
Well to my readers I say, “What could I do?” It all happen so fast, the only thing I could do was watch.
So now the neighborhood being without power or a working phone line, the entire neighborhood created an ensemble on the street directly in front of my house. Before I walked out to greet my neighbors with an explanation of what happen, I surveyed the room. It looked as if an out-of-season tropical storm had wondered far off course only to sneak down the chimney and kick the crap out of everything.
I heard sirens from a fire truck barreling down the street when I saw my wife’s car turned in the driveway. Oops!
At the front door, she looked at the living room, then at the pine tree burning, and finally at the telephone pole that’s top was slightly burning with live wires dangling from it. When she looked at me, she didn’t give me a chance to explain, or try to explain. She just said in that disappointing spousal voice, “It’s just you, John Paul. It’s just you. Call me when you get things back the way the way they were, I’ll be at Mother’s.”
The End
J.P. Nix 