Three Dollars Later I Admitted I was Wrong

One of the things I have learned (am learning) to appreciate about my dear husband is his love of cheap electronic "deals". Since moving into town a year ago from the country, we have enjoyed meandering the neighborhood on calm Saturday mornings perusing garage sales.

About a month ago at a garage sale practically across the street from us, Tim happened upon a Red Roomba. You are probably thinking to yourself, "I know that word, but can't remember why". That is because it is the robot vacuum cleaner that was heavily marketed not so long ago. I didn't know that people actually bought them. Apparently, they did, but now they are selling at garage sales for $3.

We didn't know if it worked, but it was in the original packaging with all the parts, etc. Tim said it looked like it had only been used a handful of times. I am not one to collect "junk". If I had it my way, our garage would be near empty and once a year we would take a truck full of stuff to the Goodwill just because it takes up space and time in our lives. Tim is very nearly the exact opposite. Naturally, my inclination was to leave the Roomba to some other sucker to store in their garage, but it wasn't a fight I wanted to take up. Tim saw the look on my face and responded like a true electronic engineer, "Jill, the sensors and servos on this thing are worth way more than $3. Even if it doesn't work, I can use the parts." I have lost track of the number of times I have heard statements like this. Our garage is full of these statements.

We got it home. It went in circles and didn't work. Surprise. Actually, no surprise at all. I had to keep in mind it was only $3 and Tim was enjoying the process. After google searches and a complete deconstruction and cleaning, my brilliant husband got it working. It turned out that it just needed to be cleaned out.

I was wrong. Tim was right. I'll say it again if I need to. He's brilliant and this may be the deal of the year for us. Thanks, Love, for being so handy and frugal.

The Roomba is awesome! It sweeps our tile and carpet floors while I am busily doing other things on the never ending to-do list. But the best part about the Roomba is captured below. It turns out it doubles as a babysitter/entertainer for our little crawler. When this video was taken, Critter had only been crawling for about five days. He figured it out pretty quick when he wanted to chase the vacuum.