Every cloud has a silver lining...

I have a reputation for breaking cars. I have broken around five at the last count, not including the one that burst into flames as that was beyond broken, it was annihilated.
All these cars had ‘problem clutches’. When the first clutch went it was put down to faulty mechanics, when the second and third cars developed clutch problems the husband suspected something was amiss. The fourth and fifth time he took completely different cars to the garage he refused to listen to the mechanic who said the problem was not car-related, more woman-driver related. But the husband finally took notice was when the fireman - who was putting out the blaze in our sixth car - commented that the smoke smelled much like a burning clutch and that he was also married to a bad driver.
The husband told me that from that moment on, I was forbidden to operate any type of machinery more complicated than a vacuum cleaner.
Only problem is we have had several ‘problem vacuum cleaners’ in the years since and I fear I might be demoted to 'not touching anything more complicated than a remote control'. At last count I have broken nine of vacuum cleaners. I blame the enormous amount of dust and dirt four children and a dog accumulate. The poor vacuums just couldn’t cope. The husband thinks that I am killing them.
He had bought an industrial stand-up cleaner from a well-known DIY store not three months ago. It was a superb piece of machinery with so many pipes, buttons, settings and fittings it would have put a Nasa Space Shuttle to shame. In fact the only thing it didn’t do was space missions – at least I don’t think it did, I really must read the instruction booklet again.
So at the weekend I did the usual sweep of the house with the vacuum, dragging it around the rooms and bumping it up the stairs, shoving it under chairs, stretching the lead to breaking point to fit around corners. And then I heard the familiar bang and saw the standard puff of smoke rising from the thing.
I informed the husband that another vacuum had bitten the proverbial dust and blamed the sheer volume of work it, and therefore I, had to do for the malfunction.
There was much shaking of heads, much tutting and loud and theatrical exhalations from the husband as he tried to fix the thing. Then there was a knock at the door. It was an electricity man informing us that due to a persistent fault somewhere in the vicinity the electric supply would have to be switched off for a few hours in our street. I could tell by the husband’s face he wanted to confess to the electric man that it was probably my serial murdering of vacuum cleaners that was causing said persistent problems, but he bit his lip.
So at 2.30pm the X-box fell silent, the Internet could not longer be accessed, the TV was blank. We sat there in silence for a time, my family and I, staring at the blank TV screen, unsure of what exactly to do in this rarest of rare situations.
Our family, having been stripped of the things which crave our attention day in day out, were forced to talk to one another.
So we talked, and we laughed and we took bits off the condemned vacuum cleaner and made things from them. I made a space-age hat with a hose pipe and a curtain cleaner attachment; the husband made a very impressive rocket propelled grenade launcher from the main body of the machine; my boys made science-fiction-style guns with poles and filters.
And I remembered why all the people in that room were my most favourite people on this earth.
Thank you NIE.