Shouting at the vacuum cleaner

The reluctant housewife was feeling true to her name today, so much so that it has been hard to find the motivation to pen some lines here (if you can call it penning). However, I have resolved never to moan - people have enough problems of their own and are mostly not interested anyway. Maybe I can describe my mood without actually complaining about anything. As I am now feeling better, this shouldn't be too hard.

I think it started when I caught myself shouting at my vacuum cleaner, who is an old trooper (although only a cheap model, it has outlasted any other Dyson or whatever posh vacuum cleaners are called) and really doesn't deserve to be treated in this manner. It faithfully succumbed to being dragged half-heartedly around the carpet, but then it did its annoying thing where it falls onto its side, to which I heard myself yelling, come on, you wimp. It lay there helplessly. I picked it up and continued, but those worrying thoughts that needle you about slowly going mad in a snow-bound village with only housework and a spot of cooking to occupy your time wouldn't leave my head.

Usually when I feel like this I put my neon pink trainers on and go out for a run. So that is exactly what I did. I must have looked pretty strange, for the snow was so deep in some places that I had to lift my knees really high, in that way that sadistic fitness instructors sometimes make you do just so they can have a good laugh. I couldn't see anyone, sadists or otherwise; nobody at all was out there in the white wilderness apart from me and the ubiquitous crows. When I got back I felt energised. I'd left all my negative thoughts in a snowdrift somewhere. I patted the vacuum cleaner by way of apology and went off to polish the sledge runners.