The Power of the Vacuum

The Steelers were down 21-6 to the hated Brownies in the second quarter of today’s game and having done zilch on offense while letting Cleveland convert something like 5 third down plays in a row, looked like they were going to fall to a divisional rival they surely should have been able to beat; at that point, drastic measures were called for.

So, I fired up the Sanitaire and began vacuuming furiously, doing corners with the edger attachment and even running the carpet beater over furniture and mattresses. Within moments, (well, more like thirty minutes and quarter and a half of football) Pittsburgh was up by four and Cleveland was reverting to form as the team my boys in Black and Gold have owned fifteen out of the last sixteen times they’ve played.

So, I began folding the machine to put it away; it was right then, though, that Cleveland return specialist Joshua Gibbs, who had already had a 90 yard kickoff runback, scooped up his muffed ball and ran it back 100 yards to put the Mistakes by the Lake ahead again.

Dutifully, I then dragged the vacuum cleaner down to the basement and worked over the carpets in my office area; in short order, the Steelers had scored again to go up by three with about two minutes left.

Feeling confident, I folded the machine up again at which point Gibbs returned a punt on the Browns final possession to the Pittsburgh 39, making a game-tying field goal immanent. Fortunately, all it took was to unwrap and plug in its power cord in preparation for use to have the Browns called for a holding penalty, setting them back to their own 33.

Just to be sure, I left the plug in the outlet for the last few seconds of the game, which ensured the Brown’s desperation field goal would fail, which it did, spilling sighs of relief all over our home’s nice clean floors.