What the Little Green Machine Learned

The Bissell Little Green Machine arrived in a box that took up half the garage for three weeks before I opened it. BW had purchased it at Costco during one of those moments where the price tag and the problem aligned perfectly, which happens maybe twice a year in this house. The dog had tracked mud through the living room. This was not surprising. The dog does this every time it rains, which in Niagara Falls is basically every third day.

I assembled it on a Wednesday. The instructions were printed on paper so thin you could see through it. The tank filled with hot water and the special cleaning solution that costs more per ounce than actual gasoline. The machine itself was bright green—the kind of green that doesn't exist in nature, the kind of green that demands to be looked at. It had a little trigger and a tank and wheels that squeaked slightly when you pushed it.

For exactly four days, the Little Green Machine was perfect. It sucked up the mud. It sprayed the solution. The carpet looked like it remembered what color it was supposed to be. BW was pleased. (This matters. When BW is pleased, everything else quiets down.)

Then the child found it in the laundry room.

I don't know what she was trying to clean. A stuffed animal, maybe. A book. Something that definitely did not need cleaning. The Little Green Machine was not consulted on this decision. It simply operated as it was designed to operate—spraying hot soapy water in concentrated bursts—while the child held it at angles I would not have thought physically possible. The trigger kept getting stuck halfway. She kept pulling harder.

When BW discovered what had happened, the machine was dripping water into a puddle that had migrated from the laundry room toward the kitchen. The child was dry. The Little Green Machine was soaked. Not wet the way it's supposed to be wet. Wet the way things get when they have been used as a fire hose by someone who weighs 47 pounds and has no concept of consequences.

I emptied the tank. I let it sit for two days in the garage. The wheels still squeak. The trigger still sticks sometimes. It cleans fine when I use it, which is to say it works better than it deserves to given what it's been through.

The dog tracked mud through the living room again yesterday. The Little Green Machine is ready. It doesn't have a choice about that either, I guess. (Neither do any of us, really.)

If you liked this story about the Bissell Little Green Machine Portable Carpet Cleaner, you can buy your own on Amazon. Remember, we're BFF if you do.