Chim-chim-che-roo

We have company coming today. We were scrambling to clean up the joint after days of neglect and human abscence so we wouldn't have to hang our heads in shame when Jim and Lynnette walked in.
In the middle of cleaning Les says "I think I'll bring in the shop vac to vacuum out the fireplace"
( An aside here..... I will never stopped being amazed at the things my hubby will consider a priority for "Weekend Guests Cleaning"- the fireplace- indeed)
So I said, skeptically, "we have 2 hours and 20 minutes and you want to vacuum out the fireplace? Really?" He responded in the affirmative with a side of "why are you nagging me woman?" So I let it go.
He had to don a rain coat ( it was thunderstorming), to get out to the garge and drag in a shop vac. He started with the little one. That one didn't have, and I quote "the intestinal fortitude" to suck all of the ashes out. So, again with the rain coat and outside, this time he came in with the "big" one. By this time Evelyn was thouroughly engrossed- because to her, the only thing that rivals toilet cleaning is vacuuming the fireplace out. So there she was, garbed up in her polar feece Princess Leia dress ( she HAD been watching Star Wars all dressed up in her polar fleece P.L. dress), ready to assist Papa.
I was standing there looking at them and wondering where in my life I had gone wrong. Then I shook it off and started to frantically dust and try to make up for the loss of, not one but two workers at that point.
Then they turned on the Big Vac.
It was loud.
Nothing happened really until Leslie put the sucking end of his shop vac into a pile of very fine black ash.
That's when it got interesting.
That ash went in one end- the hose- and was sort of dispersed at a high rate of velocity out the back end! Let me tell you, there was maximum dispersal. I stood there in that plume of ash and hollered like a fool.
Leslie and Ev did not hear me as they were right by the loud motor and talking about how that ash was really getting sucked out.
Finally, finally they heard me hollereing and shut the damn thing off.
Needless to say, there was alot more dusting to be done.