My New Vacuum, The Barack 2012

I have cats – two of them. The grey and white one, Tommy, weights in at just a little over 13 pounds. The black one, Sweetie (the wife picked that name, not me) is quite smaller; however, both seem to shed the same large volume of hair well known to anyone who has a house cat. Cat owners also know it is a continuous battle to clean up the shed hair in their homes. To do that, you need a good vacuum.
Well, the wife and I decided the old vacuum just wasn’t cutting the mustard, so we went vacuum shopping. After we looked at what was available, we made our selection. It was all new and shiny, and the manufacturer’s claim was it specialized in cleaning up pet hair! It had a powerful engine, all kinds of bells and whistles – I mean to tell you, this was the answer to our prayers. It made the old vacuum look worn out, and we believed the new and improved vacuum would cure our cat hair issues in short order.
In reality, here’s what happened when we got our new vacuum home. At first, it seemed to be everything we expected – and more. Man, could this thing suck a rug. But not long after it got on the job, things started to go south. The “pet hair” specialist clogged with,, guess what – pet hair! The engine overheated and kept shutting down. And then the filter quickly filled with dust and dirt, and even though I cleaned it, according to the instructions, performance suffered. Soon we found it would not even vacuum up pet hair off of our tile and hardwood floors. While it still looked new and shiny, we knew we had bought a bill of goods. Bottom line – what seemed like a good idea was really a very bad mistake.
It was then that it struck me that I must be feeling the same as folks who voted for Barack Obama. While he seemed to be the answer to everyone’s prayers, once in office, his performance has suffered, and he has not made good on any of his promises. In fact, he has done the complete opposite of what his supporters expected - like having an open and transparent government, for example -- fighting the war in Afghanistan (well, fighting it to win, anyway) for another.
So here I sit – two cats, their hair, having buyer’s remorse. We’ve returned to the old vacuum and found it’s pretty reliable, and while it’s not bright and shiny, it gets the job done right. As for the new vacuum, I’ve named it The Barack 2012, as I don’t expect it to be on the job after that.