美国最年长的参议员，为一台用了四十九年的吸尘器写了段告别。它叫贝丝。

In America there is a senator called Grassley.

He is ninety-two this year, the oldest senator in America.

On the eighth of August, he posted something online.

It was not about the country. It was about a thing in his house.

In his house there is a vacuum cleaner.

This vacuum cleaner has a name: Beth.

Why would a vacuum cleaner have a name?

Because it had been with this family far too long.

It is a Hoover — a very old make.

It first spent fifteen years at Grassley’s mother-in-law’s house.

Then it moved to Grassley’s house and did another thirty-four years.

Fifteen plus thirty-four makes forty-nine years in all.

Forty-nine years, one vacuum cleaner, and it never broke.

Forty-nine years, used every day, and it never broke.

Forty-nine years, it was in this family’s house the whole time.

In those forty-nine years, America went through a great many presidents.

Grassley himself went from middle age to ninety-two.

And that vacuum cleaner was still in his house, still working.

All the way to this August — forty-nine years had passed.

One day in August, a patch of its power cord burned and went black.

To keep using it would cause an accident. It was no longer safe.

So Grassley took a photograph and put it online.

Then he wrote a few lines, saying goodbye to this vacuum cleaner.

He wrote: you will not see Beth any more.

He wrote: it cannot be used any longer.

He wrote: goodbye, Beth.

He wrote: you really were a good helper.

He wrote: I will miss you.

The person who wrote those lines is a ninety-two-year-old senator.

What he was talking about was not a great matter — it was a vacuum cleaner.

Afterwards, his colleagues left messages underneath.

A lot of them said: we will miss Beth too.

Think about it: is there something in your home you have used for many years?

If one day it broke, would you miss it too?