My mom this morning, between bouts of vacuuming:
“So funny… they tell you not to wash these filters, in the vacuum cleaners. I don’t know what lame reason they give… but they cost like 25 dollars. So I’ve been washing them, and setting them out to dry in the sun, and they work fine. One of them got kind of a musty smell, and so I dumped clorox all over it and then washed it and let it dry. Worked great.
“I mean, I know why they say it, of course. Capitalism. Had even Edna bamboozled, she had trouble finding new ones and I said “well let’s wash these” and she said, “Oh, but it says not to!” So we did, and it was fine.
“… It’s kind of like drycleaning. What’s the worst thing that could happen? It gets wrecked, and then I have to buy a new one. And of course… but you know, if it can’t live through real-life stuff, it can’t stay at our house.”