WOMEN ENGINAMEERS OPERATING IN A VACUUM My wife says men's clothes are made better than ladies clothes, and the manufacturer will price them more reasonably. Men's suits are lined with fabric and sewn precisely. Extra buttons are included, even on shirts. She claims the general quality of menswear is superior to that of womens clothing. Not being a transvestite, I really can't say whether her contention holds water, but using household appliances as a measure, it must be true. Take the vacuum cleaner, for example. What a pathetically designed machine this is. Because the machine was designed by a man, power was the priority. The product manager said, "This thing has got to suck, baby. I don't care how big it is, how heavy it is, how cumbersome it is, it's gotta suck a golf ball through a garden hose. Power to the people!" So given those masculine directions, you get today's vacuum cleaner. It'll suck the fringes right off the carpet while beating the rug like the family mule. It has no ease of use features. It's heavy and it's awkward. It plugs into the wall so the cord is always in the way and catches in the wheels. As you traverse from room to room, you must lean down and unplug the vacuum, then replug it. The tools a man uses in the shop are cordless, and we don't have to go from room to room. What about the attachments? Shouldn't it be possible to design a vacuum head that would be multi- purpose? As you progress from carpet to hardwood, it is necessary to fish out a new device. Want to vacuum the dog hair off the furniture? OK, but use a different attachment. If you acquire a man's screwdriver these days, a couple of flicks of the finger and the right blade appears. Why not vacuums? The bag, oh, the bag. After a few passes sucking up Bob's abundant hair, the bag is full. Bob is a shedder, a big shedder. I have saved his hair from brushing, and by golly, the spinners and knitters of Milford spun and knitted a pair of mittens from it. These dog hair mittens were featured in the Milford Fair. I don't know if they took a prize or not, but they should have. I wonder if they smell like Bob when they get wet. Pew! Anyway, Bob's hair doesn't all come out during brushing. Twice as much finds it's way on the furniture, the carpet, the seat of my truck and forms dog hair dust bunnies in all the corners of the hardwood floor. So when vacuuming, the bag needs changing relatively frequently. Shouldn't changing the vacuum bag be easy? Hal It takes an engineering degree from MIT to figure it out. OK, I'm not the sharpest tack in the box, but I am aware they have in-house vacuum systems. I've never used one, but because they snuff up the dirt and suck it through hoses into the basement, the capacity and power must be huge. These in-house monsters will probably Hoover up the tiles from the floor and suck the nails out of the hardwood. But still, you must have to lug the hoses around and screw them into the outlets, and 1 bet the hoses to the basement get clogged. I see "cyclone" vacuums on TV that don't have a bag, but you still would have to empty them and I bet it's not an easy task. There's a "robot" vacuum that you set loose in the house and it wanders about sucking up the dirt. No hose, no cord, no holding onto it. Butit'sa fittle thing and couldn't hold much dirt. I believe it keeps on going even when full, slurping up the dirt and simultaneously expelling it. I guess the designers (men, I'm sure) figured, "Why not? No human is doing any work. What difference if it sucks up the dirt and blows it around. It'll be like men repairing roads, it does no useful work, but it has the appearance of doing a job". Contimied on page 9 Tree Trimmin & Removal Brush chipping Lot clearing Hardwood & Softwood iumber Firewood, Black River Tree Service Glenn Guernsey 476-3757