Pointless Drivel

Are Your Shots Up To Date?

Sometimes, people amaze me. 

Seemingly Unrelated Subject #1

Need to get rid of something but don't want to pay to have it hauled away?  Try putting it by the street.  Trust me, it works.  Whatever it is, you can probably put it at the end of the driveway, and it will be gone overnight.  I discovered this early in my home ownership experience.  The previous owners of our house did a very poor job taking their old junk with them when they left, so we ended up having to find a way to dispose of it.  We called the garbage company, and they told us their rates for lots of extra stuff, and told us to leave it by the street.  But what started as a huge pile was, by the time the garbage haulers appeared three or four days later, reduced to a very modest amount.  It was then we learned people driving by will decide they want the junk and take it.

Also, it only happens after dark.

A few years ago, my parents were replacing their toilets, and wondered what to do with the old ones.  I said to leave them by the street, explaining what happens in my neighborhood.  Living in a small town, The Mother didn't think people in their area would do such a thing -- especially with a used toilet -- but I convinced them to try.  She called me about every hour after that to report they had not been taken.  Until after dark.  As soon as the sun went down, she called very excited, to say they were gone.

Disgusting?  Sure.  But it should be pointed out the only difference between a toilet in The Mother's house and one right out of the factory is the factory one is, by comparison filthy.

Seemingingly Unrelated Subject #2

We had a mouse problem recently, and I think I figured out where they were living:  Above an access panel in the ceiling of the basement.  I discovered it last week when, in search of a shut-off valve for a leaking outside water faucet, I removed the panel and was showered with mouse poop.  It was all over the place.  So disgusting.  I spent a couple of hours cleaning up, throwing away anything that may have been touched by the mouse poop, and spraying a liberal amount of bleach on everything -- enough bleach that we had to open all the windows for a few hours to air the house out.  My eyes are still burning,

Seemingly Unrelated Subject #3

We got a Bumble for Christmas.  Well, The Shmunkin did, anyway.  It is a very large, white, gorilla-looking stuffed animal.  We named is Bumble after the Abominable Snow-Monster from the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" kids' Christmas show.  If you remember the show, Bumble is what Yukon Cornelius called that big, hairy, white thing that kept changing sizes throughout the show.

The Bumble was a gift from The Shmunkin's cousins.  I guess they won it somewhere.  Unfortunately, it was too large for either her room or the playroom, so it ended up in the basement.

See where this is going yet?

Putting it all together, the Bumble was in the basement, under the access panel, and was showered with mouse poop.  Instead of trying to clean it, I decided I didn't want my daughter around such a thing, so I simply sprayed it with a whole lot of bleach, and hauled it outside, waiting for the next garbage pick-up.  Yesterday evening, I placed the Bumble on top of the garbage bin (it is much too large to fit inside) and wheeled it to the end of the driveway.  But it didn't stay.  As soon as the sun went down, the Bumble disappeared.

Incidentally, if it is you who took the Bumble...no, we don't want it back, but you may want to make sure your shots are all up to date.  Granted, the amount of bleach I sprayed on it is definitely more than enough to kill any of the Hantavirus that tends to live in mouse poop, so it is probably safe.

But still.

Maybe We Should Filter Target

Here's yet another in my long list of situations I am convinced can only happen to me.

A few months ago, I bought a vacuum from Target.  More recently, I needed a filter for it.  Now, if you're in the market for a vacuum filter, where is the first place you think of to purchase it?  The store where you bought the vacuum, right?  But when I did that, they were out.  Just to make sure -- and because it would monumentally embarassing to ask someone where something is, and have him or her pluck it off the shelf I had just been looking at -- I searched not just the 4-foot wide area where filters, belts and other accessories are located, but the entire vacuum cleaner deparrtment, to no avail.  So I asked a clerk, who did the same thing:  He stared at the four-foot section for a few moments before declaring they weren't  there.

I asked is there were any in stock, but he said that was unlikely since there was no place for them on the shelf.  So I asked if I could pull the filter off the display model and purchase that.  He went to ask the manager, and returned with a negative answer.  I asked to speak to the manager, who explained that, since there was no way to find the part number for the filter, nor a way to determine the price, they could not sell me the filter from the display model.  But, he noted, I could buy it on-line at Target.com.  I tried pointing out that, if I could buy it at Target.com, and if the store had even a rudimentary Internet connection, he probably could determine both the part number and the price, but he disagreed.

So I went on-line.  Guess what?  No luck.  In fact, here is the actual email I sent to Target through their web site:

I need a vacuum filter.  I purchased a Dirt Devil Vibe from the Edina, Minnesota store (at 77th and York) in late 2007.  When I recently returned to get a filter for it, I learned Target doesn't actually carry accessories for the majority of vacuums they offer, but that the filter could be purchased on-line instead.  Okay, I was a little disappointed, but I understand you can't carry every accessory for every product.

So I went on-line to find the filter, but, if you do have them available, there is no readily identifiable means of finding out.  I think I am a pretty smart guy, but I could not figure out how to determie if you had the darn things.  Hes's what I tried:

A search or "Vacuum Filters" resulted in eight products, four of which were actually filters (but of those, two were the same, so there was anet of 3 out of the eight "vacuum filters" actually being vacuum filters.)

A search for "Dirt Devil" resulted in 47 products, but 11 of those (nearly 25%!) were for the funky-looking hand-held vacuums in various colors.  But nothing referencing filters for any of the vacuums.

I tried searching for simply "filter" and got 280 items returned.  And, while I did not look through all 14 pages of items, I did take a random sampling of about half the pages.  I was able to find air filters, furnace filters, monitor filters, water filters, coffee filters, privacy filters, cartridge filters (whatever those are), camera lens filters, and a video game called "Syphon Filter:  The Omega Strain for PlayStation 2."  I even saw actual vacuums listed.  But, alas, still no filters.

So what's the deal?  Where can I get filters for this thing?  Or, is it just one of those disposable products that I am expected to replace every time it needs cleaning.

(Incidentally...and this is something I suggested to the store manager as well...if you're going to carry a product that has a part needing frequent and routine replacement, but you do not carry that replacement part, you might want to note that near the products themselves, so future consumers can make a more informed decision.)

Thank you.  I look forward to your response.

I did locate Dirt Devil's website and, in a mere fraction of time time it took to discover Target considered the availability of vacuum filters a closely guarded, Eyes-Only level secret with national secutiry implications, I was able to not only figure out how to find and order the filter on-line, but also get a list of three businesses within 5 miles of my house  that repair Dirt Devils and, dare I hope, carry replacement parts.

Oh well, at least this time I didn't get stuck.

Update:  I heard back from Target.  Well, someone named "Krishnamoorthy" who claims to work for Target.  She (he?) has informed me that Target.com does not carry the vacuum filters I am, but that I might want to check with other stores, or check back with Target.com to see if they do start carrying them in the future.  Or check with the manufacturers to see where I can buy parts.  And, worst of all, it comes from an email account that does not accept incoming messages, so I can't respond.

Wholly disappointing.

I would love to get al high and mighty and claim I will stop shopping at Target over this heinous issue, but I won't.  Let's face it, I still like Target.  They sell good products at a reasonable price.  Their stores are clean, clerks are friendly, and they are based right here in Minnesota.  And even better:  They're not WalMart.

Besides, it is just a vacuum filter.

But I just may send them a letter, because, frankly, I find the responses I get from corporations in situations such as this to be enormously entertaining.

Pure Joy

There's a line at the beginning of the Tom Cruise movie, "Jerry McGuire," that, for whatever reason, has always stuck with me. As the voice-over is running down a list of prospective sports super-stars, the camera pauses on a baseball player swinging a bat, and the voice-over says, "Check out what pure joy looks like."

They have no idea. I have seen pure joy. I have a Shmunkin. I see pure joy on a regular basis. As well as pure anger, pure sadness, pure fear and, of course, pure confusion. Of course, the last one doesn't refer to the Shmunkin directly. The confusion is mine and the Ways and Means Committee's, due in large part to the logic of The Shmunkin.

We had dinner with some friends the other day at one of those game places. You know the ones, they serve food, but are also filled with video and other games to play, and where you can win tickets that are redeemable for a bunch of cheezy trinkets prizes. So we spend a few dollars, play a couple of games, and win something on the order of 34,523 tickets. Which is good, because it takes 10-thousand just to get a soda in this place.

The Shmunkin had great fun with the game where you put a token into a machine, and it rolls around, then finally lands on a turn-table that somehow determines how many tickets you win. She absolutely delighted in the Whack-A-Dinosaur game, even if she didn't actually, technically, hit anything hard enough to trigger the machine. (Whack-A-Dinosour is just like Whack-A-Mole, but without the celebrity endorsement. Or, for that matter, an explanation as to why the dinosaurs are underground in the first place. Be that as it may.) She even liked pretending to drive in the race car game. But the absolute best was redeeming the tickets.

Instead of making you count your own tickets, they have an actual machine that does it for you. You have these long strips of tickets, and simply feed them into the machine. It counts the tickets, you press a button for your receipt, the machine says, "You're a winner," and you go off in search of which of the many valuable prizes you will be taking home.

So we take our strips of tickets to the machine, Shmunkie helps me load them, we press the button and the machine says, "You're a winner." This is where the pure joy comes in. No longer is it just WMC or I telling The Shmunkin she is a winner, now it is an actual, physical, official machine doing it. Once the machine has proclaimed her a winner, her face shows confusion at first, then comprehension. Her eyes get big, her face lights up, her arms fly above her ahead and she starts jumping up and down screaming, "I'm the winner! I'm the winner! I'm the winner!"

Power to the Cat People

A little less than three years ago, I bought my first Treasure Beckoning Cat.

If you've never heard of a Treasure Beckoning Cat -- or even if you have -- it is a comical little statuette of a cat, left arm raised by its hear and on a swivel so that, when a battery is installed it swings incessantly.  It's purpose, as the name implies, is to beckon treasure.  There are other Beckoning Cats, as well.  Some beckon love or good luck or, as far as I know, extra fish.  But those are all different colors.  When they are gold -- either shiny gold or sort of a sparkly gold finish -- they beckon treasure.

At least I think they do.  That's what they are suppose to do, but it is hard to tell if the one I have at work is beckoning anything besides little kids fascinated by the waving kitty.

My first exposure to a Treasure Beckoning Cat was on Shamian Island near the mouth of the Pearl River in Guangzhou, China.  We were in China to adopt a little girl -- the one those who read this blog have come to know as The Shmunkin.  Guangzhou was the last stop on our trip.  It is where the American Consulate to China that deals with adoptions is located.  In fact, when we went, it was located right on Shamian Island, though I have heard it had moved.  Also on Shamian Island, right next to the Consulate, is one of the only Five-Star hotels in Asia, so, as you might imagine, the island itself is a big, tourist-filled place.  Also as you might imagine, the streets of Shamian Island near the hotel are lined with restaurants and little shops selling just about anything you might want to buy in China.  And each of these little shops -- at least, every one I saw -- had a Treasure Beckoning Cat.

The first time we saw one, one of the members of the group -- Kathy -- pointed it out and, probably a little punchy from all the travel and dealing with a new baby, raised her fist next to her head and said, "Power to the cat people."  At that point, I decided I wanted one.

You might think an entire island filled with shops selling cheap and gaudy merchandise to American tourists would be an easy place to buy an authentic Chinese Treasure Beckoning Cat.  It isn't.  First of all, the cats themselves are not Chinese, they are Japanese, but have been adopted, apparently, by Chinese shop owners.  Second, the shop owners themselves want the Treasure Beckoning Cats to beckon treasure to their establishments, not to sell to the tourists.

But I finally bought one.  In one shop, the Ways and Means Committee was in the process of buying a bunch of clothes and other souvenirs to take home, and I asked the woman working there to sell me her cat.  She refused, but I politely pointed out WMC was buying a bunch of things that could also be found at a dozen other shops along the same street, and if she didn't sell me the cat, as well, we just might take our business elsewhere.  She hemmed and hawed, insisting it was hers and helped beckon treasure to her establishment, but finally gave in and sold me the thing.  And, I imagine, waited until we left and pulled out another one to sell to the the next sucker to walk in.

So why am I talking about it now?  Besides the fact that I am bored and wanted something to write about?  Simple.  My sister the Librarian got one for me.  I'm not sure where, since she currently lives in Switzerland, which many will tell you is in neither China nor Japan.  As far as I know.  I think she remembered me talking about it, but didn't realize I already had one, so she got it for me, and when another sister, the Owner of the Mythical Cat, visited the Librarian recently, she brought it back.

And it has been an instant hit.  The Shmunkin has fallen in love with the thing.  The very first time I took it out of the box and showed it to her, I also showed her how to hold her hand up and say, "Power to the cat people."  So she does.  Every time she sees it.

Of course, I don't expect it to last long.  At almost four, she isn't the most careful thing around and, let's face it, Treasure Beckoning Cats aren't exactly the most sturdy or durable.  Apparently, the power of the cat people is limited.