The whirling dervish from Vileda

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My mum bought me a train when I was five, it had flashing lights and made a whoo whoooo sound. I was quite impressed with my present, mainly because it wasn’t another pair of mittens connected together with string. My mum was less than impressed with my train. She said: “The man at the market said it was supposed to move.” Picking the train up from the carpet, my mum carried it through to the kitchen and set it down. It immediately went Whooo whooo, screeched across the linoleum, swivelled around 3 times on its axis and came haring back towards me. Being a bright boy I had spotted the imminent danger and decided to go running back into the lounge screaming and shouting and looking for my dad.

 

Whoo whooo

Whoo whooo

 

I hid the monstrous train at the bottom of my wardrobe with my collection of mittens.

 

The usual present

Despite the string I usually managed to loose at least one of the mittens

Fast forward to present day and imagine my horror when Mrs Sensible arrives home with a battery powered hoover. Although it doesn’t have flashing lights or go whoo whoo, it does drive me mad. It is a fiendish gadget developed by Vileda, who, in my humble opinion, should stick to making mops.

 

Vileda Whirling Dervish

Vileda Whirling Dervish

Before my wife leaves for work (she leaves at stupid o’ clock in the morning) she switches the hoover on and lets it wander up and down the hall, thus saving either of us the task of cleaning the hall. This would have been a really wonderful idea, except I hate how just as I am halfway through a nice dream, the hoover bangs into the bedroom door and wakes me up; I just manage to drop off to sleep and engage in my dream just in time for the robot to travel down the hall and return to frantic crashes against the door. It doesn’t go whooo whoo, like my train, it goes mmeennnnhhuuummm, mmeennnnhhuuummm,  BANG, mmeennnnhhuuummm, mmeennnnhhuuummm, bang, bang, bang, mmeennnnhhuuummm.

Fortunately a couple of months ago it developed a fault: the stupid hoover forgot how to steer in a straight line; all it could manage was to swivel on its axis and clean a perfect circle. In my infinite wisdom I decided it was beyond repair and hid it at the back of the garage. Mrs Sensible did wonder if it was an act of sabotage.

Yesterday Mrs Sensible came home with the latest housewife cleaning aid: another battery powered hoover (notice I didn’t use the term house-husband). At least this one can only work when it is safely attached to Mrs Sensible’s hand.

 

 

Hand assisted mop

Mrs Sensible’s hand assisted mop

 

43 thoughts on “The whirling dervish from Vileda”

  4. You can get all kinds of exercise while “hoovering around ” the house. Great additon to your diet. Surprise your wife and run the darn thing. Or not 🙂

    Great looking little gadget So perky trimmed in red and black. 🙂

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      • agree with the above comment…. weren’t you supposed to be on a diet? they say hoovering and house-cleaning is a great workout! no excuses… she’ll love you even more for it 🙂 (mind you, after a bottle of wine you’ll also clean going round in circles…)

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        • Yes I vaguely remember the diet. In the summer it is too hot to go outside running and in the winter it is too cold.

          I get most of my exercise from trying to swat the mosquitoes. We have 15 square metres of netting covering the windows and umpteen metres of gaffa tape holding it all together. But still they get in.

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  5. i totally understand this as i have always been horrified by toys and machines that i feel take on a life of their own. hate dolls and clowns for this reason, they tend to come alive at night to do their mischief )

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  6. We have a routine in our house. When we get home from work the Mrs hoovers and I wash up. She can’t be allowed to see this thing because then she can go straight to the white wine while I still have to wash up. And we don’t have room for one of those new-fangled dish washing machines

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  9. A carpet-cleaning Ferrari, wowsers! Put it on a lead and take it outside to play with sausage dog 🙂 I suspect Mrs Sensible used it to make sure you got up in time for work. Good girl. If you want to avoid any more robots, maybe you should consider greeting her with ‘the Queen “I want to break free” routine… and , of course, the appropriate upright Hoover and outfit 😀

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    • Sausage dog would have eaten it. As far as the short legged but incredibly fat dog is concerned if it moves it is edible.

      Please don’t go putting ideas in Mrs Sensible’s head, she does read this you know

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  13. I have wondered how those things would work to get under the bed, but I hate anything that works without a person directing it. I won’t even use cruise control in a car. Now I hear they are close to having a car that drives itself. Look out, we’re all in trouble.

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    • The one that died just randomly ran around the house and cleaned as it went. Our house is on a split level and it couldn’t negotiate the two steps, so it had to be repositioned and sometimes it got lost in a bedroom and couldn’t find its way out. Mrs Sensible loved it, I hated it.

      A friend of mine who lives in Sicily bought the same model, she set it going and left for work. When she returned home the Whirling Dervish was scattered in little pieces from one end of the house to the other. It seemed it picked a fight with her dog, a little terrier named spanky and the dog won.

      Way to go doggie 🙂

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      • What a shame no one caught that little terrier tearing apart that vacuum. 🙂 That would have been priceless. I think I am just too old to adjust to all the latest gadgets. I grew up hearing a machine was only a good as the people who designed or built it. Just look at the Mars Rover the US sent up, one person programmed using our number system another used the metric system. The rover crashed into Mars instead of landing.

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  14. Does the Vileda mop not work safely attached to PN’s hands? You need the exercise, remember?! The mop should work in one hand with a glass of red in the other… sorted! Would love to have seen the little terrier, Spanky ripping in to the Whirling Dervish! I wonder what other household appliances are buried at the back of your garage that Mrs Sensible doesn’t know about?! 😉

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