An old vacuum cleaner reminded me about an old lamp. Well, actually, a commercial about one.

There’s a great Ikea commercial (directed by Spike Jonze) about a woman throwing out a lamp. We then see the lamp on the street as it watches, through the window, the life of the woman and her new lamp. It all leads to a nice punch line in the rain.

I bring this up because today we replaced a vacuum cleaner that’s older than both our daughters. When we replace something that old (for example, we recently replaced a coffee maker that was older than our youngest daughter) we usually hold a mock ceremony where we salute and make a really bad trumpet fanfare as a send off for the old item before we dispose of it.

We don’t really feel bad about replacing the vacuum cleaner, but we were kind of bummed by replacing the coffee maker.

This all refers to a Japanese concept called “Mono no aware” (“aware” is three syllables ah wah ray) or “The pathos of things / an empathy toward things”.

It describes the odd sadness you feel when you get rid of something you’ve had for a long time. I’ve seen people who claim to be non-materialistic cry when they left their first houses. Actually, i kind of did that, too, when we left our house in Colorado. I also remember my parents being kind of sad when we left our trailer for that new house as the trailer was the first home we’d (well, THEY’D) ever owned.

In our case, there wasn’t much pathos for the vacuum cleaner as we’d worn it out and it was long past due for being replaced. The same thing happened with our old kerosene heater last winter which was also, I believe, older than our oldest.

The coffee maker, though, was different. We both were disappointed when it broke. Some of it was the surprise when the power button suddenly stopped working but the rest, rather than being pathos, was the concern that it would be difficult to replace for less than the cost of a small car. Also, because it was old, I’d had to replace the plug when the cord began to wear out which mean I had some personal investment in it.

However, the new  coffee maker, as with the lamp in the Ikea commercial, is much better than the old one and I’m crazy to feel sorry for it.

That said, I’m kind of sad it’s gone.