Jeff Tracy and the Dance of the Vacuum Cleaner

It was pretty quiet around the Tracy house on this wet and windy November morning. TinTin and her family were staying with Lady Penelope for a short break and all of the Tracy boys had gone up to Thunderbird 5 to collect John. Alan still had a few weeks left of school with Fermat before the Christmas break and Brains was busy fixing Thunderbird 1 after a recent engine failure during take off. This left Jeff Tracy alone for a few hours to keep himself occupied. Usually, when approached with such situation, he would call John and have a chat, but since John was on his way down from the space station, that option was made impossible.

Jeff slumped himself on the sofa and sighed. He wasn't used to it being this quiet. Usually, one of the boys would play some sort of a prank on one of his brothers and there would be a bit of a staged uproar, but no... Jeff had to occupy himself for a short while... and so... he decided to do some housework.

He had never been one for housework, but there's always a first time for everything. So, after leaping up from the sofa, Jeff found the vacuum cleaner tucked away in a hidden cupboard under a set of stairs. He pulled it out and plugged it in. The lounge needed a bit of a vacuum thanks to Scott and Virgil's popcorn fight last night while watching a movie. The sound the vacuum was making made Jeff feel rather bored. That same monotone every time he swung it back and fourth was really getting on his nerves, so he decided that music was the best option.

Jeff switched the vacuum cleaner off and walked over the the stereo system in the corner. Flicking through a selection of CD's belonging to the various Tracy boys, Jeff resorted to the Radio for some better tunes. He turned up the volume to its maximum and let the tunes flow as he switched the vacuum back on.

After a few minutes, his vacuuming took on a bit of a rhythm, and before long he was swinging his hips to the beat and spinning the cable to the vacuum around with his spare hand. It all got a bit out of control when Jeff was basically dancing with the vacuum cleaner. The music had taken on a very upbeat song and he was singing along with it... swinging about the room with the vacuum in hand, kicking up the mat and almost knocking over a lamp. The track changed and Jeff took the radio and vacuum into the kitchen with him, where he continued his delayed musical début.

An all too familiar song came over the radio and this made the dancing situation worse. "Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!" Jeff was energetically jumping around the kitchen with the vacuum in hand, swinging the cord and singing along. There were many near misses in the duration of the song; that of plates and glasses alike. The slightly worrying thing was that the glass doors were open, and if there was one mistimed step on Jeff's part... then he would be sent crashing into the main pool, with or without the vacuum cleaner.

The radio presenter introduced yet another song, only this one was slightly more flamboyant. "I'm too sexy for my shirt... too sexy for my shirt... so sexy it hurts..." Jeff, as before, was singing along, shaking his hips rather flamboyantly and spinning the vacuum cord around but he wasn't expecting to pirouette around and see four of his eldest sons stood there in their uniforms, covered in engine oil and their hair ruffled into an undefinable mess atop each of their heads. Gordon, Virgil and Scott each had an expression of pure shock upon their faces, mouths slightly agape and eyes wide. Jeff had frozen still by this point and his cheeks had began to turn a crimson red from embarrassment. John on the other hand was grinning like a Cheshire cat and laughing at the aspect of his fathers ridiculous dancing. What made his laugh turn into hysterics, was the expressions upon his brothers faces.

"It's good to be home..." John exclaimed, wiping the tears from his eyes.