So I’m having dinner with my girlfriend, and we’re eating in front of the TV. Of course, the low angle of the coffee table means there’s crumbs on the floor so I go get my girlfriend’s vacuum cleaner to clean it up. She’s got one of those fancy hand held vacuum cleaners with all the attachments on it.
I put this thin nozzle one on it and start vacuuming up all the crumbs. And I’m joking to my girlfriend, ‘this nozzle kinda makes it look like an elephant.’ I start vacuuming, ‘ha, look, the elephant’s hungry.’
Then I do the crumbs on the table, and my girlfriend still has half a glass of juice, so I’m just trying to keep it going, ‘the elephant’s thirsty now.’ and I stick the vacuum cleaner in the juice and I turn it on.
Out of nowhere, my girlfriend freaks, ‘Tom! What the fuck are you doing?’
‘I’m just trying to play thirsty elephant’
‘that vacuum cleaner costs over $1000.’
‘what?’
‘and it’s not a wet /dry vac’
I’m still caught up on the first part. ‘who spends a thousand dollars on a vacuum cleaner?’
‘I just got that thing. No one’s going let me replace it because you Fucking sucked juice up with it.’
‘It was an honest mistake. Just tell them we were playing thirsty elephant with it’
‘no one knows what that is’ my girlfriend said, and then she was in a shit mood for the rest of the night. She was a real Fucking buzz kill, just in our room watching shit on her tablet whilst I was trying to have a bit of splatoon time on her Switch on her TV in the main lounge room.
So I figured I better be the bigger person here and go apologise.
So I go into the bedroom and I say, ‘baby, look, I’m sorry if I upset you playing thirsty elephant tonight. And I’m sorry you spent $1000 on a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t have wet/dry capability, and that you don’t know how to have fun -‘
‘I don’t want to hear it. I’ll figure out what we can do about it tomorrow.’
And then she went to bed. Didn’t want to snuggle or nothing. What a bitch, right?
The next morning my girlfriend was getting ready for work and I was, well, I like to joke to my girlfriend that I’m the Flash and jobs are like a solid wall of matter, because I’m constantly vibrating between them.
I told her, ‘don’t worry baby, I’ll do what I can to either get Thirsty Elle returned or replaced’
She said, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Thirsty Elle, that’s it’s name. The vacuum cleaner. I came up with it last night. Kinda sounds like Kirstie Alley, from Look Who’s Talking Now and her own short lived series, Fat Actress.’
‘What? Can you just drop it, please? Why they fuck are you so caught up on this Fucking vacuum cleaner?’
‘I feel bad. I’ve made you upset, I’ve drowned Thirsty Elle, I want to do the right thing.’
She just left for work. So I had a mission for the day, return or replace Thirsty Elle by the end of the day so my girlfriend can Fucking get over herself.
So I get on Youtube, go on all the tutorials, take Thirsty Elle apart, wash all the parts, and if I could just put her back together again…
By then my girlfriend came home, and I heard her say from the door, ‘so I called Dyson and I just said you thought you could vacuum up a spill and they said it was fine, so just don’t touch it and…’
Then my girlfriend came into the lounge room and just saw me standing over the desiccated corpse of Thirsty Elle, I said to her,’ baby, I’ve seen it on YouTube, I reckon I’ll have Thirsty Elle working by the end of the day.’
My girlfriend just turned around and left. I haven’t seen her since. It’s been a couple of days now, she’s gotta pay the rent soon.