SO. It's my friends Birthday coming up, like most older men he doesn't get much, and he's been bloody good to me so unusually for me a present is in order.
Now he likes to sit and internet and smoke (like I do) and he builds up a fair amount of smokers debris as a result, which I handle in my own life with a self-refurbished dyson DC35 amimal
I've long known he could use such a thing, so I set out to obtain a used one within my price range and do whatever is needed to make it work for him.
My first effort was a partial success, I Got a Dyson V6 for thirty quid which was described as working but wasn't working well and had a chip off the cyclones's plastic which it turns out is not fixable by tape, so I went hunting for parts to make it good on eBay..
I quickly find & win another V6 on ebay locally, which has all the bits I need to make this one whole and good, for 18 quid, and I can just nip over and collect it! My seller is super helpful, gives me all the collection deets without being prompted (including a contact phone number) and offers me a time for collection the following day.
All good so far. Except I've misread the email, she was actually offering me a most unexpected option to collect that evening! (and by the time I realised that, I've missed it)
One reschedule later, and I turn up at half past six, bang on time, and she meets me at the door as arranged and asks for my security number (what the heck?)
It turns out that f you do ebay on your phone you get a security number, which isn't so obvious if you use a computer for the internet like I do. At this point she does not give me the vac (which I've paid for by paypal as requested despite first offering to bring the cash when I colect) but after saying "I thought you might be one of those people" she retires with the vac to go and consult with her partner...
Eventually I am invited to park my car somewhere better and the young lady invites me to come in for a chat. I enter a nice clean tidy flat, with a huge TV set displaying the ebay log-in screen and invited to log in and find the required number.whilst being reassured that they will delete my password afterwards...
Although they seem nice, I'm wondering at this point why the hell she hasn't just asked me to give her the number when I get home, and she's actually suggested that I go back home and get it and then return... So I decide to offer an alternative, which is accepted.
I call the long suffering G/F and get her to look it up on my computer, and I do it on hands free so they can hear the trouble I am putting her to. My G/F plays her part beautifully, and whilst she is struggling the guy finally ask the obvious question, "Couldn't he just call you when he gets home?"
But his partner replies that she"wants to do it right"...
Eventually I leave with my vac, (and a pair of gratis new filters, thank you very much m'am!) which despite her listing clearly saying she'd changed the filter and done everything possible to make it work, after cleaning the filter by hand, (not even washing it), I was then able to clean my living room carpet, and the hall landing and stairs using the residual charge that the vac came with... It's a result!!
There's owt so strange as folk.
Gonna give it a light clean and give it to my mate tomorrow, I've just looked on the calendar and I have another full week, so I'll give it a deeper clean and see if I can end up winning him a crevice tool and long tube to make it the full setup. May as well do it righter, if I have extra time..
Eventually I'll sort the other one out for my one use, by dismantling the cyclone totally, making a conformal mould of one of the good cyclones with aluminium foil backed with bluetack, which I'll then transfer to the part where there is a hole then I can back fill it with a mix of superglue and baking soda which is a miracle plastic repair meta-material.that everyone should know about. (the amount of stuff I've fixed with that...)
OR I'll win the knackered one I'm currently stalking priced at a tenner and just swap the relevant bits over and buy it a new battery...
But was that weird or not?
