Public Service Announcement # 3857

Here are a few tips if you ever buy an upright carpet cleaner for your home.

1. Do NOT let anyone know you have one. You will NEVER get to use it on your own carpets.

2. If you let it slip that you DO have one, when anyone asks to borrow it, tell them someone else has it (make up a name) this way, they can't go bug a mutual friend (who also doesn't know you have one) to hurry up and be done with it. Then you are not caught in a lie and do not have to loan it out.

3. When that person who asks to borrow it walks in an sees it sitting there, tell them it's broken.

4. When they don't believe you and you cave in and let them use it, ask them twice a day if they are done with it yet, otherwise it will be a month (or more) until you get it back again.

5. While it is out of your possession, make sure you do not eat, drink or walk in the carpeted areas, for this is the ONLY time you will spill stuff or kids drag in mud, or animals will piss, shit, or puke on your carpet.

6. Do NOT under ANY circumstances loan it to your less-than-mechanically inclined father who breaks everything he touches while trying to clean or fix something. Your machine WILL come back broken.

7. When you FINALLY get it back, don't question him as to why it's ducted taped. He will explain to you that it needed a good cleaning and when he did, he discovered the seal was shot. (What he won't tell you is that instead of unscrewing the machine to clean it, he thought it should just pop off, so that's what he did and THAT'S why it's duct taped.) Thanks Dad

8. Once get to use it, get husband to re-duct tape it because your dad did a half-assed job and the damn thing doesn't suck the chrome off a trailer hitch like you remembered before you opened your big mouth and everyone else has clean carpets.

9. Make sure you pre-treat all of the above mentioned stains because you didn't heed my advice that I so kindly laid out for you in #5.

10. This last one is VERY important. Not only will it save you a LOT of time, but it will keep you from looking like an ass in front of your family. DON'T SPEND AN HOUR TRYING TO CLEAN A STAIN THAT WON'T COME CLEAN, BECAUSE GUESS WHAT.... YOU CAN'T CLEAN A SHADOW

That's right folks.. I spent an hour on and off Sunday afternoon scrubbing, spraying and cussing at a shadow caused by a cord hanging out of a drawer. NO, I DIDN'T notice that the "stain" showed up on my skin as I was trying to scrub it off of the carpet each of the 6 times I tried to remove it. It was only after I tucked the cord in to shut the drawer, so that I could get at it better did the stain magically disappear. Needless to say, I laughed my self into a hiccup induced coma and my kids had me Baker acted.