3 thousand pounds

Back to random stories from my childhood...my mother, as I have previously mentioned, was a cleaning fanatic. (ok, once a week feels like a lot when you are a child...I mean honestly, if you can't see that it is dirty where is the reward in cleaning it!!)

And as you may have noticed from previous writings, (Learning to fly or Why treadmills are the anti-christ) physical calamity is much closer to me than my guardian angel, it was very true this day, and most days if I am truthful.

Soooo, I was vacuuming the stairs going up to the second story of our house, we had a very old farm house with 14-foot ceilings, so it was a t-a-l-l staircase, made of solid oak (which is really hard, I think I should add). The vacuum cleaner had a heavy canister, about 8-feet of hose, and weighted approximately 3-thousand pounds...or so it seemed to my nine-year-old self, after carrying it upstairs. After vacuuming the top floor I had to vacuum down the stairs (in hind sight, why we didn't just sweep the stairs, I have no clue since they were not carpeted, but anyway...)

The vacuum was on the top step above me while I vacuumed the stair below where I was standing...and so in this manner I would work my way down one step at a time. Or at least, that was the plan.

Until...

Somewhere around the fourth step from the top (of the t-a-l-l staircase) my feet got tangled in the cord and the hose, this completely escaped my notice, most likely because I was daydreaming which I still fall victim to on a regular basis...hmmm, where was I :)

In my blissful ignorance of my feet being tangled, I attempt to try and step down to the next stair...
then the fun begins...

My cord and hose ensconced feet cannot move but the rest of my body has already started to go forward, which sends me into a head first swan dive down the very long staircase. Now let us not forget that because my feet are wrapped around the hose and the cord, I am now connected to the vacuum cleaner.
So what is following me down the stairs...
Yes! the 3-thousand pound canister!

With a bumping, flailing, and painful decent to the first floor, I land in a crumpled mass at the bottom of the stairs...to shocked to even cry out and then...

in s-l-o-w motion I see it coming...the 3-thousand pound canister (whimper)

And I understand how poor Wilde E. Coyote felt in the Road Runner series - because I could see
it hurtling towards me and I was completely powerless to stop it from landing on me.

WHOMP!! OUFFF!!!

All of the wind has been knocked out of me, places hurt on me that I didn't even know that I had, the vacuum cleaner is sitting on top of me, my legs are tangled and totally trapped, and my mother walks into the hallway.

Does she rush over to help me?
Check for broken bones?
Express sympathy and make sure I am still breathing?

NO!!

She strolls through with a non-chalant, "I hope you didn't break the vacuum cleaner."
Ouch!!! But I did get out of vacuuming for the rest of the afternoon!