Aspiraciones...

Dyson handheld vacuum cleaners, oh yeah.

I'm not complaining about my presents, but even my mom would understand that I really wouldn't mind if someone gave me one of these. She certainly transmitted good gift-giving etiquette to her kids and we understood from an early age that domestic appliances are not an appropriate gift choice unless clearly and specifically requested. But even so, if a woman today requests something like this, vacuum lust burning in her eyes, she's rarely taken seriously. My surface-cleaning device fetish is no secret, but I have yet to receive one as a gift. I choose to think that it's because anyone who would give me gifts just assumes that, as a feminist*, I'd be offended by something that seems to glorify the role of woman as housekeeper. I conveniently ignore the possibility that anyone who would give me gifts knows that as a housekeeper, I usually fall short of glorious (But I am a bit precious about the granite countertops and I sort of Martha-Stewarted the kitchen after everyone left this afternoon). They probably assume that I would use that magnificent piece of cleaning technology quarterly at best (but they're wrong this time). So why, then, is it OK not just to give men power tools as gifts, but for them to specifically request them, even when they use them way less frequently than the average domestically challenged woman uses, say, her (in the category of Things That Sound Dirty But Aren't) Swiffer® Wet Jet? But if I had the Dyson...

After a few swipes with this baby you will no longer be able to eat off my floor.

* While my brand of feminism may be different than my mom's, I do agree with Tara Brabazon, in Ladies Who Lunge, that the lyrics of the "I Will Survive" Gloria work to a point, but at some point, as we get older, the words of the other Gloria are actually more sustantive.