So...you all know I just got married back in April. We're just now starting the dance with the gift registry stores. Tonight we visited Bed, Bath and Beyond. Relatively painless exercise. Perhaps the best part is that you can cash in gift cards for cash or return gifts for cash, although this may change soon. The worst part was that the young clerk had to cash in each gift card separately.

1. Swipe the gift card
2. Tell the register you want to exchange for cash
3. Give the customer a receipt
4. Have the customer sign the return receipt
5. Clerk signs the receipt
6. Manager signs the receipt
7. Repeat for each gift card you have. (We had like 10 cards.)

But still, it was a smooth, if inefficient, process. They didn't balk at any of the items we wanted to return, and it we were able to order or purchase unbought items that we wanted off of our registry that weren't in the store at a 10% discount. Couple this with the 20% off coupons that everybody gets in the mail that gave us like $30 off our vacuum cleaner and $20 off our nice stainless steel trash can, and we did pretty good.

This post is about the vacuum cleaner - The Shark Professional Commercially Rated Upright Vacuum. It was relatively easy to assemble, but the maintenance is just crazy.
There's:

• A monitor to tell you when the dust cup or the HEPA filter needs to be cleaned. (decent, actually)
• A dust cup to clean (standard).
• HEPA Filter (also standard, but after this it gets kinda crazy) that should be cleaned after EACH USE. If you clean it with water, then you must let it dry for 24 or else risk destroying your sharp-looking Shark. Even though you're knocking dust off of it and sometimes rinsing it out with water, you should still replace it every 3 - 6 months.
• A debris screen. Under the HEPA filter looks like. This must cleaned with water after every use before putting it back into the machine.
• A secondary filter. Actually situated between the HEPA and the debris screen. It's washable, but the Sharkies (that's what I'm guessing they call themselves) recommend that you change it every 3 months.
• An exhaust filter. Located in the bottom of the filter near the motor. Clean it by rinsing under lukewarm water and allowing to AIR DRY ONLY. Put a hair dryer to it, and risk voiding your forfeiting your soul.
  
• A pre-motor filter. Also rinse this in lukewarm water and allow to AIR DRY ONLY. The manual specifically warns against cleaning it an a washing machine and drying it with your sister's/wife's/aunt's/mother's/grandmother's/great-grandmother's/fiancee's/girlfriend's/live-in's/"just a friend"'s hair dryer. If this filter is particularly filthy, feel authorized to upgrade your water from lukewarm to full-on tepid and add a mild detergent.

I almost put the damn thing right back in the box when I read all this. If a simple vacuum cleaner comes with such directives, how long will it take me to read the manual when my wife and I bring a baby home?

I'm not making ANY of this up! I expected the next two rules to be "Don't get it wet." and "Don't feed it after midnight."

It is sharp looking, though. Looks like a race car.

Know What I'm Sayin'??