Mission Accomplished

Since my husbnnd can fix almost anything, we contemplated changing the belt in the vacuum cleaner as an easy chore, a matter of an hour or so. Ha! We worked on the thing for three hours and came very nearly to the point of throwing it into the trash can. This in spite of the fact that we had an instruction book and had done the job before.
The first step was easy. Remove the two screws that hold on the motor cover (in the back of the vacuum) and the two in the front, recessed in two holes. This we did. The next step proved to be harder. "Grasp either end of the roller bar and pull straight up." It even showed a picture of a hand grasping the roller bar and pulling it up. My husband tried. The bar stayed solidly in place, so he tried the other end. No luck. It seemed to be frozen solidly in place.
"Try prying it up with a screw driver," i suggested. "It must have gotten hot and stuck. It is plastic. Maybe it melted and glued onto the frame."
It seemed a reasonable suggestion, but the bar would not move. We tried prying it up with a cat's paw. We turned the vacuum over and banged on it with a hammer. We even poured W-D forty oil down into the end parts. Except for getting oil all over the brushes and down onto the paper bag we had thoughtfully put under the vacuum, nothing gave.
"Read the instructions again," suggested my husband.
"Grasp either end of the roller bar and pull straight up," I read. My eye wandered down to the bottom of the page, where I had written something in ink. Something mysterious and meaningful and vital to our undertaking. "Make sure the roller bar clears the square hole," I read. My husband uttered a rude remark. He obviously remembered something I had forgotten. Without another word he grasped a small screwdriver and thrust it into the square hole at the end of the roller bar. Pushing in the little prong contained inside, he easily pulled the roller bar up and we finished the job easily.
Why didn't the instruction manual mention the square holes? I remembered, now that my memory had been jogged, that I had called the technician at the company and he had told me about them. Many times we have found ourselves baffled and I have availed myself of technical help to complete the job at hand. Thankfully we were able to replace the belt, clean out the vacuum cleaner, which was filthy, and it now works fine.
All in all, the day had been a success. We finished in time to have dinner, and we hadn't paid out any money to have the appliance fiixed. Once again I had reason to be thankful that my husband has a talent for fixing things.