A Seinfeldish Story

I often feel that events in my life would fit right into a Seinfeld episode, and that I'm George. I wish I were Kramer. Kramer has the coolest stuff happen to him! Once, I had a toilet-paper run-in once that made me laugh because I had just watched the "spare a square" episode. Just random, go-nowhere events that make me sit back and go "Hmmm. That was weird and had nothing to do with anything." Am I looking for those events? Maybe. They make me feel like I'm living in the moment; that I'm involved in my life rather than just passively experiencing someone else's story and letting my own personal clock run out.

Then I think maybe I should write these things down so I can laugh at them later, or possibly start writing my own sitcom using events from my own life.

*Warning: Long and possibly uninteresting story ahead. If you choose to read the whole thing and don't like the ending, don't say I didn't warn you!*

The latest sitcom-worthy story took place at my condo on Saturday night. It's been so long since I vacuumed my carpet that I am embarrassed to say I'm not sure if it was in April or May. I know it wasn't June. I clean everything else in my condo often, but the vacuuming always somehow gets delayed. At any rate, a good vacuuming was due, and I decided Saturday night was the night. I was even excited about it! I dusted everywhere and put as much smallish furniture and accumulated piles of "stuff" as I could on larger pieces of furniture. I looked at all of that carpet that was ready to be vacuumed and couldn't wait to plug the darn thing in.

Now, my vacuum is at least 7 years old, and even though I bought it new I bought it at Wal*Mart and I did not buy the most expensive model. So, it's a cheapy little thing. And since I have so much long hair that is constantly falling out of my head (in the way it should so that my head doesn't get overrun with dead hair) the long hair tends to clog the machine and burns through the stupid rubber belt and creates weird odors when I vacuum, I have to unclog the thing often. It does an okay job most of the time, though, so I don't worry about it too much.

Well, there I was on Saturday night listening to Showtunes Saturday Night and almost giddy with the prospect of a non-dusty carpet. I plugged in the vacuum, and for about 5 seconds things seemed to be fine.

And then a horrible, acrid, burned-rubber smell permeated the air, causing me to frantically shut down the appliance, throw open the front door and sliding door, and futilely search for the fan I must have loaned to someone.

Sadly, it wasn't the first time I had encountered that smell. After manually fanning the vacuum with a towel to diffuse the stench, I grabbed my tool kit and took the plate off the bottom of the vacuum to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, the hair had clogged the spinny-thing so much that it had overwhelmed the belt, and the belt had melted, resulting in the horrible odor and -- more importantly -- rendering any possibility of vacuuming with that appliance in it's current state to be moot.

"Frustrated" is not a strong enough word for how I felt at that moment. It was mingled with "disappointed" and "annoyed."

I briefly considered giving into a tantrum in the form of stomping to Wal*Mart to buy a new vacuum, but then decided I would simply go to the vacuum-repair place sometime this week and get a new belt instead. Hopefully I can get there tomorrow.

At any rate, I regretfully gave up on the vacuuming plan, and decided instead to sort through a stack of junk mail and other random-odd paper "treasures" that have accumulated over too-long a period of time. I more or less righted the room again and then dumped the piles of paperwork in the middle of the floor.

And then, for no reason at all, I decided to take the recycling out. So I grabbed the cardboard box overflowing with paper products and plastic bottles and bags, put on some flip-flops and headed for the recycle-specific dumpster. As I walked to the dumpster, I saw that there was a fire truck sitting the street right next to it. Suddenly (because I'd had a bad week, had been to the temple that afternoon because I was lonely, and this is how my mind works) I thought, "Oh my gosh! This is what the evening has been building up to! I'm going to meet a handsome fireman and we'll hit it off and eventually get married! What a crazy random happenstance it will all be and I will be glad that my vacuum broke because if it hadn't I would never have met my husband! I even look cute, wearing a dress and everything!"

Yeah...no. I took my time emptying my recycle box, but I never saw any firemen, handsome or otherwise (or evidence of a fire, for that matter). Instead, I took my now-empty cardboard box back to my unvaccumed condo, put in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD, and watched a few episodes while sorting my paperwork, which I have yet to finish.

*Cue the closing credits.*

I told this story to some of my girlfriends last night and they laughed and told me that I'm still in the middle of my personal romantic comedy. It's possible I'll meet a guy while at the vacuum repair place...or I won't. It really doesn't matter. But I felt for a moment like I was living in a sitcom episode where nothing happens except that I am entertained. I was entertained though!

I'm totally George. Sigh.