"I had a linguistics professor who said that it's man's ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there's one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren't afraid of vacuum cleaners." --Jeff Stilson
I knew it was too good to last. It's been more than a year since I've had something go wrong with a domestic appliance, be it a personal hair remover or something not intended for use on the human body. Oh and this one doesn't count because seriously, it could have happened to anyone! It could!
Yesterday wasn't any different from most of my days spent around Casa Barking Mad, except that the Little Imp was at Montessori for the day and the groomer had come to pick up Casey after the discovery that the spawn of our neighbour, Creepy Whistling Dude, have been throwing shitloads of chewed gum into our backyard. Alas, a big-ass post about that is forthcoming. So whilst I was sitting here wondering if my dog was going to be returned with any hair or not, I decided to obsessively clean, like I normally do.
I'll have you know, I have never suffered any sort of injury from a domestic appliance until now. I swear!
The culprit, a Dyson Animal...
...and it's evil accomplice: 
I had been vacuuming around my desk and noticed there was a sock on the floor. I bent over to pick it up so that it wouldn't kill the vacuum, as Dyson's tend to have the sucking power of a black hole. Whilst bent over I noticed what looked like another sock a little further back under the desk. In order to retrieve that one I had to get down on the floor and reach under the desk.
Right about this point, any normal person would have probably turned the vacuum off. We can just cut to the chase and admit right now that I am not a normal person.
I laid down on the floor with my head precariously close to the evil accomplice. Before I knew it, I was hollering at the motherfucker to let go of me! Not only had it sucked my hair into the attachment, it had wrapped it around the little brushes. Both of the cats who had previously been watching the drama unfold from the safety of my bed, hightailed it out of the bedroom. Traitors!
Should I pause for a moment to let you regain your composure or pick yourself up off the floor from your fits of hysteric laughter?
Are we ready to go on? Good.
I yanked the cord out of the wall and foolishly thought that removing the electric leech from my head would be as simple as gently pulling on it. Not so much. It had a pretty good hold of my hair, which was wrapped around the roller about three times, and wasn't letting go. Trying to get myself into a standing position was a nightmare. I ended up scooching towards my desk chair, carefully pulling the entire vacuum along with me so as not to end up scalping myself.
I finally managed to get myself situated in my chair, with my head at the oddest angel and sat, quietly considering my options. I must have sat there for ten minutes thinking of different ways to get myself out of my predicament. I could always call Meg at work and have her run home. On second thought, whilst I never shop at the grocery store she works in, it would make it hard for the hubby to pop in there from time to time as he'd forever be known as the dude married to vacuum-cleaner lady. I could always scream loudly and hope that one of my neighbours came to my rescue. On second thought, the possibility of Creepy Whistling Dude hearing my cries for help and actually stepping foot in my home was more than I could bear.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a pair of scissors in my desk caddy. I gave my hair a couple more tugs just to make sure I absolutely couldn't get it out. However, there was no way I could cut my own hair out of the vacuum. I really didn't want to end up looking like Annie Lennox and I wasn't even sure if I would be able to safely cut my hair out of it as I would have been doing so almost blindly.
So, having no where else to turn, I decided, what the hell, I might as well Tweet about it.
And here is the transcript of those fateful moments, before I finally cried Uncle and phoned 911.
Click to enlarge. Oh and you have to read from the bottom up. My screen capture wasn't working and you don't even want to know what I had to do to preserve the moment in perpetuity. Therefore, I was too lazy to put the tweets in chronological order.
Yes m'dears, I did call 911. Two firetrucks, three police cars, and an ambulance full of EMT's showed up. Can we say OVERKILL! Seriously, weren't there any jaywalkers to cite, speeders to ticket, burning houses to extinguish? I swear, it must have been a slow day here in Nowheresville, Maine for the entire cavalcade to show up.
Even though the vacuum cleaner was clearly unplugged, the braintrust (NOT) that is our local fire department went ahead and shut the electricity off to the house, temporarily. You know, just in case.
So how did they finally extract my hair from the evil attachment of doom? With a pair of plyers, a screwdriver and a can of WD-40. No scissors were involved and I do not look like Annie Lennox...and an entire rescue squad has tales to tell for at least a month...if not longer.
It's a damned good thing we're putting the house on the market in May.
