The Bissell Learned to Hate Us

The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser came to us on a Tuesday in a box that smelled like a warehouse in Ohio. BW had ordered it without telling me, which meant it was already too late to object. She set it on the kitchen counter like a piece of evidence. "The dog is shedding on the couch again," she said. "This will help."

It did help. For three days it was the most effective thing in our house. Better than me. The Bissell would charge overnight and wake up ready. It had a light on the brush head. It had a dust cup the size of a loaf of bread. It did not complain. It did not ask why we had a golden retriever the size of a small car if we were not prepared for the consequences.

On day four, the child found it in the closet.

I was in the driveway doing something useful with my hands when I heard BW call out from upstairs. Not yelling. Calling. Which meant she was giving me time to prepare. I came inside and there was the Bissell, still plugged into the bathroom outlet, still running, now completely white on one side.

The child had used the Sharpie on it while it was operating. She was very focused. She had written "VACCUUM" across its tank—and she had spelled it wrong, which somehow made it worse—and the marker had transferred onto the dust cup and the handle and now half the device looked like a property that had been tagged by someone who did not have a steady hand or a working dictionary.

"She said it looked sad," BW told me. (She was not defending the child. She was explaining the situation, which is different.)

The Bissell is still here. It still works. The marker dried into the crevices of the brush head, so now it's a spotted thing, a thing that's been through something. I charge it when I remember. It does not charge as fast anymore, or maybe that's just in my head. The dust cup never quite seals the way it did. There's a faint smell of permanent marker around it now, even when the cup is empty.

BW says we should replace it. She's probably right. But the child keeps walking past it in the closet and looking at it the way you might look at something you've apologized to but don't know if it's accepted your apology. The Bissell never moves from that spot on its own, so it can't answer her.

I've thought about washing the marker off. I haven't done it yet. Some things, once marked, are marked.

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