Say Hello to Bitey

My dog, Lucy, has long hair. And lots of it. That means the hardwood floors in my house, on Le Bourget Ave., also has long hair. And lots of it. Particularly as it clumps up in corners and under furniture.

Years ago, we had a Roomba that rumbled around the house and sucked up all the long hair. But the Roomba was loud. And obnoxious. And needed to be emptied every 6 minutes. And by the time the rumbling ended the rollers underneath would look like an old Eli Fulton cotton gin, with spooled hair that literally needed to be cut off the machine. With a Machete.

Just before Hanukah, I told my daughter I had ordered this new fangled Shark robot vacuum that has its own emptying device, one that holds 30 days worth of pet hair, bread crumbs, and the enormous amount of dust produced by the sooty Southern California skies and the accompanying Santa Ana winds.

My youngest daughter Abby, ixnayed the idea, letting me know in no uncertain terms that my wife would not want that. So I cancelled the order. 

But come January and the irregular visits from our cleaning ladies, I decided to go through and get the top of the line Shark. This time for me. 

Widows/widowers are often told to be kind to themselves. That's a new habit I'll have to start nurturing.

Do I love my new Shark? Indeed I do. I was even encouraged by the iPhone app. to give him (sorry) a nickname. And so stealing from one of the well-worn formulas created by the Simpsons, I named him Bitey. You know, cause he's a shark.

In addition to the huge price difference, the Shark outdoes the Roomba in every way. 

Starting with the way it uses a laser to map the house and literally goes about sucking up whatever is on the floor in a bidirectional straight line manner as opposed to the Roomba which just went all over the fucking place, in no particular order. 

This appeals to the OCD in me.

Also, Bitey is noticeably quieter than Roomba. With my door closed in the office I can barely hear Bitey doing the hard work I should be doing if I were ever inclined to pick a broom. 

This appeals to the Lazy in me.

And finally, though I've only owned Bitey for a couple of months, he does what he's supposed to do. That's not to be discounted. Many products simply overpromise and never live up to expectations. But every time Bitey returns to his base station, he flawlessly docks with the mothership as if it were some space age science fiction flick. Then Bitey does a 360 degree turn and the male and female sucking components mate for a complete and satisfying transmission of all that yucky stuff. 

This appeals to the puerile side of me.

In other words, Bitey is righty.