The Bissell Learned What It Was For

The Bissell arrived on a Tuesday in a box that the child immediately claimed as a house for her stuffed animals. BW opened it anyway. She held the handheld Pet Hair Eraser like a sports reporter holds a microphone—with purpose, with the kind of grip that meant business was about to happen.

The dog, who has no idea he is the reason for any of this, continued shedding.

For three days the Bissell sat in the charging dock like it was waiting for something. Maybe it was. Maybe it knew. On day four I watched BW use it on the couch and the thing performed. Genuinely performed. Hair came up in these satisfying columns. The motor sang a little song. The Bissell was, I think, happy. This was what it trained for. This was the thing.

Then the child found it.

I don't know how long she had it. Time works differently when the child is in another room with something electric and a purpose. She was "cleaning" the backseat of the Uber. That's what she called it. The Bissell was screaming. Not the motor—the filter, maybe, or the intake valve. Something inside was screaming. I could see the cord wrapped around her forearm twice. She was one small miscalculation away from a situation that would make BW use a voice I have only heard once before, and that was in a parking lot in Buffalo.

I unplugged it.

The Bissell sat dormant for two weeks after that. BW would glance at it in the charging dock the way you glance at someone who let you down once and you're still deciding if you're over it. The filter was clogged with something that wasn't dog hair. I never investigated deeply. Some things are better left.

Yesterday I used it on the living room. Worked fine. Cleaned up most of what was there. But there's a sound now—not broken, exactly, but changed. Like the machine is remembering what happened in the backseat. Like it's thinking about it while it works. Like it's grateful for the straightforward task and also slightly suspicious that at any moment the child might appear with the extension cord tangled around her and a vision of what "clean" means.

BW says it's fine. The dog keeps shedding. The Bissell keeps charging. Everything continues as though nothing happened, which is what always happens, and the Bissell will never know if what it experienced was a malfunction or a warning.

If you liked this story about the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser Handheld Vacuum, you can buy your own on Amazon. Remember, we're BFF if you do.