This is a fun little experiment! I'm not sure what it proves,
but it proves something,
and if nothing else it's funny to watch.
Because we are 'stagers' our housemates believe that everything in the house is placed, in its place, for a reason.
When someone dares to posit an alternative-placement-theory for the toss pillows, we, as Stagers, do tend to launch. This 'launch' is generally fashioned after Ms. Joan Crawford's (now infamous) wire hanger scene.
Once upon a time, I personally invested 45 minutes of couples counselling screaming about how we had decided on a particular arrangement for the toss pillows, and how that arrangement had been altered without the traditional 2 day warning, without my consultation, and in defiance of all-that-is holy!
Control issues? Me? No way! -and I mean, no way!
These are the ingredients that you will require for this experiment:
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A human male.
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A carpeted area.
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A vacuum.
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Electricity.
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A brick.
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and a banana leaf.....
Gathering our ingredients into one room, we feign busy-ness, fatigue, or anything else that will exempt us from personally running said vacuum over the carpeted area.
CONDITIONS: This experiment works best in a lightly furnished room where there's plenty of exposed carpet. The carpeted area should be devoid of other debris. The soil level should be moderate: some pet fur, a bread crumb, some dust. More dirt than this will provide said human male with an excuse that this job is too daunting and that a professional cleaning service is necessary.
We place our brick in a high traffic section of the carpet (sometimes placing it just off center in the room makes this easier to photographthe human male during the experiment). Most men can't handle the responsibility of connecting the electrical source to the vacuum, so let's just plug it in for them.
THE EXPERIMENT: So now we're ready. The human male turns on the vacuum and proceeds to execute the chore. It is his personal belief that no one has ever worked, harder, longer, or more diligently. His mind wanders, thinking of the 'special rewards' that he deserves for this particular enslavement. He knows that this 'special reward' ain't happening in July unless, of course, it's his birthday, or maybe he thinks that possibly New Year's Eve is being celebrated on a bi-annual basis and thus 'special reward' might be in the offing.
Here's the best part:
- He sees the brick.
- He nudges the brick with the bumper guards of the vacuum.
- On a primal level he is cognizant that in the game of 'what doesn't belong in this picture' the brick is probably a correct answer.
- However, removing the brick from the picture, was not part of the original instruction. Also, it would require a separate skill set, i.e. bending over to pick up said brick.
- If you've left the room, you'll hear the vacuum whirring and whirling. There will be an occasional pause,at this pause, the human Male's brain is now whirring and whirling "what do I do with this brick"? This pause in vacuuming is your signal to peek back in the room.
- Determining that the chore has been completed to the best of his abilities, the human male will at some point turn off the vacuum. It will remain plugged in to the electrical outlet. Should your particular human male unplug the vacuum, it is most likely that the cording will be gathered in some tangled pile (unless your human male is an engineer, they like the cords to be wrapped tightly onto the vacuum).
So where is the brick?
It's not exactly where you left it. Because what kind of idiot wouldn't vacuum under the brick. But it's not picked up either. It's been nudged, and cajoled, into some arbitrary position on the carpet. Many human males will have attempted to vacuum up, said brick. This is how vacuum repair stores stay in business.
I'm a frequent fly-er at the vacuum repair store. I currently own four vacuums, and a carpet steaming device. Only two vacuums are currently working, and the steam machine gave up months ago. Why? Because I'm a man with a vacuum, who truly, and really, believes, that bricks can be vacuumed!
Happy Staging Y'all!
(Oh, and the banana leaf...I dunno what it's for, but Martha Stewart always seems to include some impossible-to-find ingredient or tool in her advice, and if it works for Martha, it works for me).
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