I Reach A Pivotal Moment In My Life.

There are certain moments. When you know you will change as a person. And are about to do things you never have before, that will probably define the rest of your life as a man.

For the first time, I am about to purchase a vacuum cleaner.

Feeling very modern, I flash the text-message reservation confirmation at the woman in Argos. She seems unimpressed. Perhaps she has seen this done before.

I remember the first time I discovered that socks and pants did not magically just appear. I was in my third year of university.

That was a big one.

The thing about household tasks requiring ‘tools’ of some sort was also a shocker, as was the introduction to shops that smelt of metal, hard work and masculinity. Purchasing a cordless drill was mind-blowing.

But this.

More than socks, pants, hammers or drills, vacuum-cleaners have always just BEEN THERE. Wherever I’ve lived, there’s always been one about, or someone has had a spare one (why?) that I’ve taken.

So this is enormous. I had a perfectly good one that just came from nowhere, which my sister – in the brief period she rented my spare room, used once and tripped every switch in the house and caused a brief but alarming electrical burning smell – destroyed.

Getting home from work, I take the box from the carrier bag. This is guaranteed to be an excellent experience.

For one; it cost less than twenty quid. No matter how poor it is, it cannot disappoint at that price.

And. The box has been taped-up by an Argos employee meaning it is an un-advertised return. This means that the previous owner thought it was so good that it would have been unfair not to let other people have a go at it.

I am agog with anticipation.

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish thingse”

Yeah. It’s time to put away childish things and do some overdue hoovering.

But it’s late. We’ll see.