Oh no! Vacuum!

A couple of weeks ago, my vacuum was making a weird noise. So I took it to "Mike" of Mike's Vacuum. A couple days and $22 later, it was back and seemed to be working fine. Then all of a sudden, weird noise again. I ignored it. Big mistake. A couple more minutes and the thing completely stopped working. I took it apart and the belt had essentially disintegrated. Booo!! I had another belt on hand, so I replaced it. It was less than a week later and the weird noise was back. This time I didn't ignore it. I took the vacuum apart and this new belt was also being eaten. Oh no! So last Friday, I took it back to Mike. He called on Saturday to tell me that he thought the brush was wearing out and he was going to replace it. Then he thought maybe it was the clutch system and he was going to replace that. Then, early this week, he called to tell me, basically, he couldn't fix it, didn't know what was wrong with it and there was nothing I could do but get a new vacuum. Booo!! (again) Of course, he had one that he sells, that he stands by, offers a 2-year warranty, will give me "a bunch" of bags if I buy it, blah, blah, blah. I do not have $300 to spend on a vacuum right now. Besides, when I tried to research this vacuum he suggested, I couldn't find anything about it online. Weird, right?

Plan B. Consumer Reports. Consumer reports likes the fairly inexpensive Hoover Tempo. Amazon reviews were also mostly good. So I was going to buy one today. Target doesn't carry it. The guy I talked to at Sears seemed ... confused. First, he wanted me to give him the item number. (I was not online; don't they have somewhere they can look it up??) So I got on to the Sears website, told him the number that he needed and he was all "Ummm ... yeah, I can't get that in here." You can't get that in here? Really? Then he tells me I can order it online and have it shipped there. Okay, so I can order it and have it shipped to your store, but you can't get it in your store? Sigh.

I ordered from Amazon. It will hopefully be here in 5 days. But I may be completely insane by then. The crazy is growing in proportion with the amount of fur on my carpet. I may have to stalk a friend to borrow a vacuum before I loose my mind.