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During my very short-lived stint as a vacuum cleaner service technician at a shop here in Los Angeles, two customers still stand out as the most amazingly stupid people I have ever seen.

One day a man brought in a Eureka Bravo and said it was not picking up anymore and was "making a funny smell when it runs."

The shop owner brought the machine back to the Service Department and one of the guys laid into it. He removed the bag chamber cover and OH MY GAWD this horrible stench filled the shop!

Holding his nose with the fingers of one hand and carrying the machine with the other hand, he beat a hasty retreat out the back door with all of us following behind him. He stood the machine on the parking lot pavement, pulled off the bag that was so full at the bottom it was like a solid mass, tore it open and looked inside.

{{{*EWWWWWGGGGGGG*!!!}}}

The bag was full of KITTY LITTER.

Not CLEAN kitty litter.

USED -- very used -- and very rancid -- kitty litter.

Even outdoors the odor was overpowering. Our eyes were burning and noses were running.

The serviceman very gingerly wrapped the bag inside a heavy duty garbage bag and taped it closed - to show the customer in case he had any arguments. (They had a lot of experience at that shop with kooks.) He would not bring the Eureka back inside but left it sitting by the back door. "I can only HOPE some dumm mudder-fudder steals it!" he said.

The shop owner called the man and asked if he could stop back by. The man came back later and the owner told him his sweeper was outside in the parking lot by the back door where he could get it if he wanted it, and then showed him the plastic garbage bag, and then told him what was in it.

The man was very confused, concerned and angry. He "simply could not imagine" how this could have happened, and was hinting that he still wanted to get a replacement machine under warranty.

Fat chance buddy! The man left a couple days later muttering he was going to go buy a Dirt Devil.

Good riddance!

A couple days later the man came back with a very sheepish look on his face. When he had gotten back home he had grilled his family about the vacuum cleaner. His 12-year-old STOOPID son finally admitted he had used the sweeper to make quick work of his least-favorite chore: cleaning the cat box. Yep. He just vacuumed the entire contents into the vacuum cleaner and then "forgot about it."

It stood in the cleaning closet for several days until the man's wife went to use it and detected "the strange smell" (Good Lord, what could have been wrong with HER nose?!) and that it would not pick up.

The man said he wanted a new Bravo, and his son would be paying for it out of his allowance.

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Another time, same store, a customer came in and said her Eureka Bravo (what was it with these machines?!) wasn't picking up and was making a "burning smell."

The owner brought it back and one of the guys took a look at it. He peered up into the agitator roller and saw a little white thing -- what looked like a little piece of gauze -- sticking out. He pulled at it with his fingers but could not get it free. So he removed the agitator and tried to stick his fingers up inside the motor housing. He still could not get the cloth out.

So one piece at a time he disassembled the machine, getting closer and closer to the motor. Finally he got up into the motor housing and began pulling and untwisting something. Looking like a magician doing the "never-ending scarf" trick, he kept pulling this white gauzy fabric out of the machine until it was free. He shook it out and held it aloft for all to see:

It was a pair of super-duper mammoth-plus-size nurses' white PANTYHOSE!!!

The owner picked up the pantyhose and, dangling it off the end of his finger, took it out to the counter and showed it to the customer. He said, "THAT is why your machine stopped working. Someone sucked up this up into it. Maybe they ran the vacuum under the bed or something?"

The lady became VERY irate and started shouting. "What kind of MF BS is this? I ain't got no pantyshose like dat (maybe not -- if anything, she would have required a pair several sizes larger if you get my drift!") The owner said, "Well, ma'am, I don't know what to tell you, but this was what we found when we checked out the machine. The serviceman had to completely take it apart to get to the, um, hosery. The service charge will be [X amount - whatever it was, I don't remember now] dollars. Will that be cash or charge?"

She hollered "What kinda MF scam you runnin? That be a brand new MF vac and it ain't workin no mo and you just don't want to respect the warranteee! I'll SOO you if you don't give me a new one at no charge!"

The owner very calmly said, "Ma'am, you can sue all you want. Meanwhile, you will please take your vacuum, leave my store, and don't ever come back here again."

With a harrumph and one last profanity mumbled under her breath, she snatched up her repaired Bravo and waddled out of the store.