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Comment by marky1991 | Hacker News Reader

marky1991

I have no idea why someone would get mad about getting a vacuum cleaner as a gift. It's boring, sure, but if you keep complaining about your old one, it seems pretty thoughtful.

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Everyone’s situation is different. But typically the reason this offends is because for a stay at home mom a vacuum is a work tool. If the current vacuum is broken then you should just get a new one. It shouldn’t take the place of a Christmas present, which is the opportunity to get her something related to her personal interests rather than her job.

Interesting point of view. But it's common for a man to get a work tool as present (e.g. a drill or a set of wrenches), with the obvious implication that the man will usually be the one who will have to use that tool to fix things around the house - and I have never seen anyone find that offensive. So what makes the vacuum cleaner different?

For anyone that like to do DIY, that's not a work tool, that's a play tool that is coincidentally a work tool to do work.

Same thing back at you. The vacuum is a play tool to anyone who finds cleaning to be “fun”.

There’s whole genres of cleanup games on steam which are extremely popular, profitable, and well reviewed.

One of my favorite vectrex games is a Pac-Man clone where you play as a vacuum.

Powerwash simulator is occasionally fun. There's shiny rewards, I don't have to deal with potential bad weather, and there's no random patches that take 20 times to get rid of. If I don't feel like powerwashing simulator, it will wait for me, forever, with no ill consequences or social judgement.

If I never wash my actual driveway, the same is not true. Therefore I will need to wash it at times when it's unpleasant or I don't want to, and it will take longer than powerwashing a driveway in Powerwash simulator.

In this scenario (again, everyone’s situation is different) DIY is more often a hobby for the husband. Repairs are infrequent enough that you could just hire someone as needed, but the husband chooses to do it.

Perhaps more importantly, it’s not his full time job.

The implication is that it implies vacuuming is that persons responsibility to the point of giving them "their" tools instead of it being a shared purchase for the house.

Not everyone will care, but this is a stereotypical type of present likely to trigger anger and resentment in the recipient for a reason.

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