Persistence and Integrity

On a recent Saturday, my barber and I were having a discussion about persistence and integrity. Huh? It seems she asked me how I planned to spend the rest of my day off. Being honest, I told her I had to go home and finish my vacuuming. She giggled at this, and I explained that I am the designated vacuumer in our house, thanks to my commitment to my position on the subject of whether we buy another vacuum. You see, we replaced our last vacuum while it still had some useful life. My spouse was tired of the fact that it was a nuisance to empty it as you tended to spread dust around when doing so. The dust could have been controlled with a little caution. She tired of the new vacuum quickly ("It's too hard to push"). Being the man, I refused to buy another vacuum so soon when we now had two serviceable vacuums. Always a step ahead of me, she promptly informed me that I could do the vacuuming, then. My barber thought I might be a bit "stubborn," I called it "persistence." I acknowledged to her that I am weakening, and may be buying a vacuum shortly.

She asked if I had tried doing a very bad job of vacuuming and I said it was another weakness of mine, I just couldn't do a bad job on purpose. She paused for a while, then remarked, "I guess you probably call that 'integrity' instead of 'stupidity,' don't you?"