This is going to be fun. It is born of a Saturday, so it owes its gestation period to those rare moments when your blogger was actually deeply devoted to the great "Honey Do" chore of the day. About which more, after I finish what the Voice from the Kitchen assigned for the day.
The cartoon is something that came up on Google. You would not believe what you get from Google when you ask for "Beat the Carpet." This is the only thing that came up with a person about to do the task that was so common in the '40's...when I was growing up. There are a lot of pictures of people vacuuming and all sorts of similar things, but just this one lame cartoon that depicts what the actual exercise is all about. We did have carpets in our house. Mostly they were more like what we would call today, "scatter rugs" or "area carpets." Nothing that could ever compare to Persian rugs, of course. Those were for people who were not like us. They were either rich or "Pêtent plus haut que le trou." [Sorry, no translation available. Remember what I said about the value of being a polyglot?] Roughly, it means that if they weren't rich and they had a Persian rug, they had forgotten their roots.
Anyway, this was also the time that you had linoleum of varying quality, surface design and price per square foot depending on the room in which it was installed. Once again, some slightly luckier, or more economically favored families had a room or more of polished hardwood floors. More that likely with high traffic areas protected by a Persian rug! You see, the carpets that I beat were Sears & Roebuck quality, if you get my meaning. Not only that, but if you consult Google you will see some pictures of real carpet beaters. The tool, not the person doing the beating. Once again, who needed one of those? Only those same PPHqlT people who didn't want the neighbors to see that they were using the handle from a worn out broom instead.
I got all these thoughts and memories flooding back to me this morning as I was cleaning the family transportation per the desires expressed by you know whom. Yes, I used a whisk broom to clean the inside floor, not a vacuum cleaner and I beat the floor mats to make sure that they were more deeply cleaned than the broom could do. See, we've forgotten our roots too...we have fuzzy, quasi carpet floor mats in a six year old, 136,000 miles, $12,000 car! Paid in full.
By the way, let me show you what else I found when I searched for "Beat the Carpet." Now this is what I want to try. I wonder how much it costs? Do I have to go to Siam for this kind of carpet? If I do, I'll give it some thought so that I can really be a true PPHqlT!
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| I want one. Imagine the fuel savings. What do they do in the rain? |
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