Vacuum Cleaner Deja Vu

Been there, done that: unwitting repeat request

I stopped by my friend Scott’s place this afternoon and found him out back, ruefully examining the remains of his yard, which the construction crew, in need of space to lay out components of the bridge pending, decimated last week.

Scott’s stately pine tree, which he’d tended since its infancy, was a casualty of their encroachment. (On the upside, so was his mammoth junk pile.)

As Scott scoped his ravaged garden, I homed in on the indelible blotch of white oil paint which, on the occasion of my prior visit, had sloshed onto the asphalt when Scott stumbled and caught the bucket handle with his foot.

I next turned my attention to the daffodils in the four-foot-high oak planter beside the garage. Scott had constructed the planter three years ago, and attached to it a brass plaque, in memoriam of John Nolan, the town tree-trimmer, who’d been killed when he fell head-first from the bed of his truck.

Just three days before his death, Nolan had come to Scott’s repair shop, with a deceased “Hooversaurus” in hand. The model, circa 1950, is forty years extinct.

Scott hadn’t seen one in ages and hadn’t expected to ever see one again. Luckily for Nolan, Scott never throws anything out; he found a spare motor and was able to resurrect the machine.

Two weeks later, a customer walked into the shop, lugging a Hooversaurus. The very same model. Scott was astounded at the coincidence.

He told the man he’d recently fixed an identical machine and had been shaken to learn of the customer’s death three days thereafter.

The customer said: He was my father.

Apparently, Nolan, after carting the repaired machine home, had neglected to cross “get vacuum cleaner fixed” off the family’s to-do list.