Somewhere in my many moves over the last decade, I acquired a hand-held vacuum cleaner that a former tenant had left behind. I remember thinking that it felt too heavy to be really useful.
Today, I discovered why. It had been used not just to the capacity of its dustbag, but beyond. The bag was one disgusting solid lump of congealed dust, and there were also disgusting solid lumps of congealed dust well up into the mechanism of the vacuum. Once I’d finished cleaning out the dust plugs (and washing my hands well after), it weighed about half as much as before.
Curiously, there were also something like a dozen spare dust bags in the box. They had price tags on them. The previous owner had clearly contemplated changing the dust bag with sufficient determination to buy spares, but had then for some unknown reason stopped short of actually changing the bag.
If I didn’t do equally pointless and absentminded deeds on a regular basis, I’d be amazed at what people are capable of. As it is, I’m just sneezy.