The Bissell Pet Stain Eraser's Great Disappointment

Bissell the Pet Stain Eraser arrived in a plain box. It had ambitions. It wanted to tackle every stain the dog left behind. The dog left no stains for six months. (She is old and mostly naps.)

The child found the box before I did. She said it was a submarine. BW said it was a carpet cleaner. The child put it on her head and made engine noises. I took it away and placed it under the sink. Bissell waited.

And then one Saturday, the dog got startled by a doorbell. She left a mess on the rug during a party. BW looked at me and said, “Go get that thing you bought.” I retrieved Bissell. I filled its tank with water and the special solution. **It worked.** The stain disappeared like it never happened. Bissell felt proud. It was the pinnacle of its existence.

The child watched the whole thing. She asked to try. I said no. She asked again. I said NO. She waited three days. On a Tuesday, while I was out driving for Uber, she found Bissell under the sink. She filled the tank with dish soap and water and attacked the kitchen tile. The result was a foam party. CAPS FOAM. Everywhere. The child looked at me when I got home and said, “I was cleaning the rocks.” There are no rocks in the kitchen.

I spent an hour rinsing the machine. Bissell did not understand dish soap. It coughed and sputtered. I took it apart, cleaned it, and put it in the garage on a high shelf. The dog has not had an accident since. Bissell sits next to a box of Christmas lights that never worked. It hums sometimes when the furnace kicks on, but that might be my imagination.

I don't blame Bissell. It did exactly what it was built to do. It just didn't know who it was dealing with. (None of us do.) Bissell is still in the garage. **It dreams of stains that will never come.**

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