Poor Domestic Choice #1

Somewhen last year, I think it was, Destructo Boy destructed our perfectly adequate Hoover Telios vacuum cleaner:

I have mercifully forgotten the details of process that lead to the poor thing's demise, but the culmination was that somehow the contents of the cylinder (dust & fur) mostly ended up in the motor.

We replaced it with this:

Another perfectly adequate vacuum cleaner. But what I neglected to notice was the fact that it has a HEPA filter. Yes, yes, we all know that it's brilliant for getting rid of dust mites, pollen and other dangerously minute nasal threats - but this filter requires to be cleaned, and by that I mean washed, after every. single. use. And when you have washed it, you cannot use it for a minimum of 24 hours while it dries.

What was I thinking ? In fact, it's abundantly obvious that I can't have been thinking at all: a thinking household would not have selected such a precious snowflake of a vacuum cleaner to cope with the detritus of a family of four - one of whom is Destructo Boy - 3 cats and a dog. This vacuum cleaner requires more attention from me than my kids get.

Of course, I blame DH. He has attempted to defend himself by saying that he had raised this very objection to this model, but I had steamrollered him ignored him insisted and just bought it. I do not recall any kind of discussion about our choice of vacuum. He says I conversed with him as if I was both awake and compos mentis. You'd think by now that he'd be able to tell when I'm really listening and engaged in versus the non-committal clearly not-paying-attention grunts of ''uh-huh'' ....

Many apologies for the odd look of this post: formatting is haywire, I can't change the font, pictures won't go where they're put: I have been swearing at this current breakdown of Blogger since last night. I may have to consider Wordpress ..... gulp.