Thursday, April 28, 2005

Talk as we may about a variety of subjects, gentle reader, I harbor no delusions of turning our parlor into a destination for product reviews. Look at Amazon, Epinions, or, if paper still exists, Consumer Reports and you’ll find but a glimpse of a saturated sector. It also occurs to me the very topics we discuss prevent the contours of our relationship from expanding into consumer opinions.

Having proclaimed this, I’d like to say something for posterity and your vacuum-buying needs. I’m going to share, and you’re going to like it. The Euro-Pro Shark Vac is a turgid piece of shit. What may seem like opinion now will, given some time, probably turn into solid fact. Let me phrase this differently, in case bamboozled and yet-to-be-bamboozled customers have trouble Googling this warning: “Euro-Pro Shark Vac = shit,” “europro shark vac AND piece of shit,” “euro-pro sharkvac shitty,” “shitty shark vac,” “middle finger emoticon europro shark vac shitty.”

I think my bases are covered fairly well. The model in question is the SV745, though I’m led to believe all their products bunk in the same part of the neighborhood. I’d post a picture of the Shitty Vac for you, but the effort needed to resize it, not to mention the bandwidth required, gives me pause. Besides, people say the very sight of the SV745 will sear your corneas and send you screaming into the abyss. Touch one, so the legend goes, and it shall bind your will and crush it, turning you into a whimpering, smoking hulk of a person.

I went through three of these atrocious devices before giving up and exchanging Candidate #3 for DVD’s, which apparently clean floors much better. Each Vac worked reasonably well at first, but within minutes the battery fizzled and died. Recharge it, right? Doing so indeed coaxed a second use out of it, until the motor burnt out, forcing me to pump the power switch like an udder to squeeze out some suction. All told, I gained more mileage out of slamming all three vacs repeatedly on the ground in white-hot fury.

I’ve since taken up with the Black & Decker CHV1400. It is dear to me. Maybe we will talk about horsies and buttercups tomorrow.