New Low for DIY

My DIY projects hit a new low last night, and I thought I'd share the boring task with you. Hey, why stop now? I spent two hours cleaning out my vacuum cleaner. I had sucked up tons of dead bees during the big honey purge a couple weeks ago and filled my upright vacuum with some nasty, sticky, awful-smelling stuff. It was definitely a job for a wet-dry vac, but not having one, I tried it with the upright. I gave up after it became obvious the fan blades were going through hell chopping up sticky insect bodies and if I continued, would probably ruin the vacuum for good.

I took the entire thing apart, soup to nuts, and scraped out goo and hosed everything down in the backyard. I dripped some turbine oil down the motor shaft, then reassembled. Everything went back together pretty well - I only forgot one piece and had to backtrack a couple steps to get it back in properly - and it fired up like new.

It was definitely one of those "you know you're a homeowner when..." moments. You know you're a homeowner when you get a lot of satisfaction from a well-cleaned vacuum. When I hit the switch and the air came whooshing out, smelling all fresh, I had a real moment of triumph, followed by a slight nagging feeling that it might have been more fun to get outside and ride my bike instead of pulling smelly bee goo out of a vacuum.