The adventures of Mr. Bee

The Thisbe house was full this weekend tonight. We had some friends and family visiting.

So, in an effort to make our house a bit more presentable, Thisbe broke out the vacuum cleaner the afternoon before our guests arrived.

Thisbe loves the vacuum cleaner (as much as one can reasonably love a vacuum cleaner), because it is a central vacuum system, and is relatively lightweight and easy to maneuver, and makes vacuuming about as painless as it can be (noting that Thisbe hates housework). So Thisbe is vacuuming along merrily, and notices that the wee kraken's Exersaucer, is as usual, festooned with the remnants of approximately 1,000 cheerios. So, Thisbe detaches the tube from the vacuum to suck up the cheerios.

In doing so, however, Thisbe inadvertently sucked up one of the wee kraken's toys (Mr. Bee, the wrist rattle). This turned out to be both unfortunate and hilarious.

The immediate effect of Mr. Bee's abduction was that there was a serious loss of suction to the vacuum tube. Initially, we hoped that Mr. Bee had traveled, Willy-Wonka like, down to the filter in the basement, but PBB checked, and there was no Mr. Bee.

PBB next attempted to rescue Mr. Bee with a wire coat hanger, but again, without success. It was at this point that we started laughing, and continued laughing for the next 1/2 hour while the process continued.

Needless to say, no vacuuming could be completed during this mission, and it was a significant concern that Thisbe had ruined the central vacuum system entirely.

We subsequently determined that Mr. Bee had become lodged somewhere in the tube, but could not quite figure out where, until (crack detectives that we are) we realized that we could pinpoint his location by shaking the tube to find the rattling noise. Once we found him, we also realized that if we twisted the tube a bit, and turned the vacuum on and off (carefully) Mr. Bee would get sucked farther and farther down. So we were eventually able to get him to the other end of the tube, before he entered the tubing in the wall, and extricate him from his dusty vacuum prison with the wire hanger.


We have washed him, and are happy to report that he (and the vacuum) are none the worse for the incident, and the antics that we engaged in to get him out caused so much laughter, that Thisbe thinks she will remember this for the next time we all need a good chuckle.