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I was vacuuming my house here a couple of weeks ago when my vacuum
cleaner snapped its belt. Yeah, a little in-attention on my part, I
parked the vacuum to pull off the hose and use the crack cleaner to
get into the corners and do some detail work. I suddenly smelled the
scent of burning rubber, only to realize that I had parked the vacuum
on the fringe on my sofa cover, which, in turn, locked up the
beater-bar and fried through the belt. On one hand, no big deal, on
the other hand, I couldn't resume my full-scale vacuuming until I got
another belt. I let it go for a few days until today. I wasn't
all that concerned about it because I know a really cool lady in my
neighborhood who owns and operates a vacuum-cleaner shop right down
the street from my house, within walking distance. I figured; "I'll
just take the old fried belt down to her store, she'll take a look at
it and fix me up." No big deal, right?
I pulled up to her store and was horrified. Lights out, doors locked,
empty space. No one home. My heart sank, big time. It made me very sad. Such a cool lady, another casualty of the "economic downturn." I wish her well, wherever she is. I sincerely hope it won't take the better part of the rest of her life to recover from this. A business owner often puts everything they have on the line. I hope she's not declaring bankruptcy. I hope she's not in a homeless shelter somewhere. I hope her kids are warm and have a good meal to eat.
However, I still needed a vacuum cleaner belt, and, with a little bit of time on my hands, thought I'd cruise the neighborhood in hopes of finding another vacuum shop like hers. I figured that strip-malls would be the most logical place to find such an establishment, since my friend's business was also situated in a
strip mall. As I cruised through strip-mall after strip-mall, my
horrified sadness grew. Locked doors, dark spaces, some with the
sign still up, a temporary clue as to what kind of private enterprise was once located there, not so long ago...
My memory goes back to when our, then, president-elect made a speech at George Mason University. Funny, I used to cruise right by GMU on the Washington Metro as I went to work every day. As part of his presentation, one statement he made stuck out in my mind. He said; "The very fact that this crisis is largely of our own
making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve."
I sincerely hope he really heard and understood the words that were
coming out of his mouth that day, specifically the phrase:
"of our own making". I believe that our current situation is largely based on "in-attention", as Washington politicos go on about their daily way, with no consideration whatsoever about what is really happening on the streets and in the neighborhoods they were hired by the people to represent.
Hopefully the smell of burning rubber is permeating the DC
beltway, or will soon. Hopefully the educated idiots will look
around themselves and realize; “Wow, we should have been more mindful of where we parked our vacuum-cleaners while we were focusing our attention on something else!"
I'm not holding my breath. I really hope that this partisan
division among us will stop soon. I wish Mr. Obama well, I really do.
I wish him success, because his success, theoretically, is our
success. However, what concerns me is, his failure would be our
failure. I pray for the man with the sincerest of intent. I hold him
up with honest support. May he be enabled to do what he says he's going to do.
I felt like a two-bit, street-walking whore when I ended up buying my new vacuum-cleaner belt at Wal Mart. But, at least I have clean carpets now...for the time being...for what it's worth...