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contact with Mom and asked, “Ma’am, would you like to see a demonstration?”
    He unwound the power cord with a practiced flourish and plugged it into the wall. On the way back to his machine, he made a show of walking slowly over our carpet, studying its gold, scarlet, and green designs. Then he clicked on the vacuum and ran it over a particular spot, back and forth, back and forth. By the third pass, the vacuum was leaving a thin but clearly visible line of sand in its wake. When the salesman ran the vacuum back across the trail of sand, the vacuum sucked it right up   —and then deposited a fresh line of sand in a slightly different spot.
    Jerry and I elbowed each other and counted our lucky stars   —this was one time someone else would get the blame for not cleaning up all that sand! The salesman was visibly withering. With each pass of the vacuum across the carpet, his shoulders slumped a bit lower. His forehead wrinkled. He pushed and pulled the vacuum more and more frantically, and I could see his lips moving silently.
    Suddenly, he turned off the vacuum. For several seconds he stared at it, and we stared at him. Then he crouched down and plucked some sand from one of the long lines marking the carpet. He rubbed his fingers and the sand fell back to the carpet.
    “Well,” he said, “what in the heck ?”
    “I’m sure   —” began Mom, but the salesman interrupted her with a quickly raised hand.
    Without speaking, he flipped the vacuum upside down on the carpet, unplugged it, and began taking it apart, all the while muttering about what might be ailing his incredible machine. As soon as he had it all put back together, he turned it back on and tried again. The vacuum traced the same lines of sand across the carpet with each pass. In desperation, the salesman pulled the collection bag off the back of his machine. He unfastened the clasp, unrolled the top of the bag, and reached his hand in. When his hand came back out, it was full of white sand, which ran through his fingers and down onto the carpet. The bag looked like it was already more than half full.
    Mom started to laugh, her hands floating up to the sides of her mouth, and her laugh was like the first rock in an avalanche. Soon all of us were laughing, even Dad and the vacuum salesman   —laughing so hard our sides hurt.
    “You know,” chortled Dad, “that fancy vacuum of yours actually works pretty good. Just look at all the sand it picked up!”
    And so as the laughter died away, we resigned ourselves to ongoing sand duty   —part of what Dad called “policing the place,” though wehad no clear idea of what that meant   —each time carefully pouring the collected sand into the hole beside our sunken bathtub.

    Our house was too far out in the country to have garbage pickup. There was a municipal dump, of course, but Dad decided that driving our trash to the dump would be a waste of effort when we had a perfectly empty valley right behind the house. Each time a trash can in the house filled up, one of us would dump it outside   —which meant that every so often Dad would notice the trash pile was getting out of control.
    “You boys go out back and get some burning done.”
    We always tried not to smile when Dad handed down that particular task, fearing he’d decide to do it himself or even give the job to Sheri. Compared to sweeping the never-ending sand in the house and our newest chore   —filling the ruts in the driveway   —burning the trash pile was nearly a treat.
    We had a routine. On the way to the garbage pile, Jerry and I would each grab a long, sturdy stick. Then as soon as we reached the pile, we’d look for something like a frayed tarp or a garbage bag, which we’d divvy up and wrap tightly around the ends of our sticks. A flick from one of the Zippos we both carried and   — fwoosh   —we were explorers, holding aloft our torches. Flames ready, we’d clamber to the center of the pile, holding the torches