screw dilemma, courtesy of eureka

One of my big Christmas gifts was practical, more than half my height, and red.

It's a vacuum!

We have been using a smaller vacuum, which we put on our wedding registry since we knew we wouldn't have any carpet in our first apartment. Well, now that we're renting a house, there's carpet everywhere, and there are two furballs that spend their time loving the carpet. The little vacuum just doesn't do the job well enough. I end up having to empty the dust chamber for each room I vacuum, and it needs a new filter.

My mother-in-law was sympathetic to our predicament, and bought us a new vacuum! I took it out of the box on December 28th, right after I got home from Christmas celebrations. I happily began its assembly. Evidently, the vacuum body needs to be attached to the handle - they can't spend the extra money for a box that's 18" taller, I guess. Included in the box was an extra rubber belt thingy (I'm new to the vacuum maintenance process) and a package of screws that were evidently intended for me to attach the handle to the body.

Being the handy wife that I am (experienced in picture-hanging nails+hammer and taking down screwed-in rose-colored mini blinds), I grabbed the appropriate Phillips screwdriver (oooo fancy terminology) and inserted the screw. Not more than three turns later, the screw got stuck. Supposed to be this way? I don't think so. It's not like we're going into wood, here; it's plastic. I tried again, thinking maybe I hadn't lined things up properly.

Nope. Not going in.

Upon closer examination, it seems that the screw itself is too fat to fit in the hole.

I immediately called customer service. They didn't seem fazed by this error in their packing skills, and were happy to send me new screws for free. Okay.

I waited about a week for the new screws to arrive (via UPS, in an unmarked white van. Luckily, the driver was wearing a uniform, so I still accepted the delivery).

I opened the little package to find a set of (ahem) TEN screws. "Strange," I thought. So I tried these screws.

They were not long enough, and not only this, but they were the exact same diameter as the previous set of screws.

So I called again! It was January fifth by this time. The sympathetic customer service agent said she'd put a rush on the delivery and left me feeling a little more confident, since she actually noted that the wrong screw set had been sent and that "Oh, yes!" I should certainly have had the set of two, smaller diameter screws. How silly of them to mess up. Free of charge again this time.

Today is January 20th. The screws have not arrived. I called again - this makes time number three - and explained the frustrating situation. After putting me on hold, the service agent noticed that they had my address written incorrectly in the system. What happened? Did they delete the previous order? It came fine the first time...

So, anyway, I am now waiting 3-4 business days for the correct screws to arrive.

And I'm still using the little tiny vacuum. Fail.