As An American, I Love British Words and Expressions

I Realized This When I Was Hoovering My Bedroom Carpet.

Who knew? We have an ancient vacuum cleaner. It still uses disposable bags, for Pete’s sake. (And just who the hell is Pete, anyway? And why do we do things for his sake?)

But I digress. Which statement could very well be the story of my life. Just one of the benefits of ADD, I guess.

I was originally diagnosed as ADD/ADHD, but I don’t believe the ADHD part. Oh, sure. I was pretty hyper until about the age of 5, but my diagnosis didn’t come until I was in my 40s. Before that, I would be “so much better off if only he would apply himself;” “Spends too much time daydreaming.” And so on. But now I’m 74 years old and, while not yet needing a cane (not all the time…yet) there’s no way I can be hyper, physically. So no ADHD.

Again, I digress. But my mind is like a web browser — -with 47 tabs open at once — so it’s kinda hard to remember which one I’m working on at any given time. Oh, right: Vacuuming.

Or, to be exact, “hoovering.” British for “vacuum cleaning.” Apparently, the Hoover company didn’t adequately defend their name when they started selling their machines in Great Britain, thus losing copyright protection on their devices.

Now here’s my point: it makes more sense for me to hoover my carpet than it does to vacuum clean it for the simple reason that I HAVE A HOOVER, but I have absolutely no way in hell TO CLEAN A VACUUM!

Or maybe I’ve been watching so many seasons of Midsommer Murders that it looks strange to me when I’m watching Americans get in their cars on the wrong side. It’s even affected my word usage, as when I brew my tea, I now have to wait until the kettle COMES TO THE BOIL before pouring it. Last year I’d have said “until the kettle boils.”

Regardless, I’m putting off doing the job until my roommate Ed gets home because the bag inside the cleaner is full and in the 7 or so years I’ve lived here I’ve never needed to empty it and as a result I have no idea how to change or empty it and while I wait, I decided to write this story. And the green grass grew all around all around, and the green grass grew all around.