Essential McLuhan 382 the household was doing more housework than she had ever done before. What Maggie had once done with a broom, Mrs. Smith was now doing with a vacuum cleaner. …As living quarters grew, standards for their upkeep increased; rugs had to be vacuumed daily or weekly, rather than semiannually. The net result was that when armed with a vacuum cleaner, homemakers could keep more space cleaner than their mothers and grandmothers would have believed possible. (page 78) Another reversal occurs because of the proliferation of “household technology”: the homemaker leaves the home: And then there is the automobile. We do not usually think of our cars as household appliances, but that is precisely what they are, since housework, as currently understood, could not be performed without them. The average homemaker is now more likely to be found behind a steering wheel than in front of a stove. She may have to drive her children to school and after-school activities, her husband to work or to public transport. She must shop for groceries. Meanwhile, as more homemakers acquired cars, more businessmen discovered the profitable joys of dispensing with delivery services. The iceman, in other words, no longer cometh. Nor doth the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the knife sharpener, the seamstress, nor the doctor. Thus a new category has been added to the homemaker’s job description: chauffeur. (pages 78–9) The next stage in reversal is the “working homemaker” who retrieves either the job or the home as the aesthetic base.