The Magic Eraser That Asked for Nothing

The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser arrived in a bright orange box. Six of them. BW held it up like she was presenting a medal. This will get the crayon off the wall without scrubbing, she said. I nodded. I have learned that nodding is cheaper than arguing.

The first eraser lasted maybe an hour. That’s not an exaggeration. The child found it on the kitchen counter. She asked what it was. I said it’s a sponge that cleans things. She looked at it the way she looks at a new box of glitter. With intent.

By the time I turned around, she had drawn a mural on the living room wall. In crayon. On purpose. She said she wanted to give the eraser something to do. I can’t argue with that logic. It’s flawed but consistent.

She wet the eraser. She pressed it against the wall. The crayon melted off like it was embarrassed. The eraser started to shrink. It knew. It knew what was coming. The child scrubbed until the eraser was the size of a postage stamp. She held it up. It’s tired, she said.

I opened the second one. This one got used on the cat. Not maliciously. She wanted to see if it could clean a cat. The cat did not appreciate the experiment. The eraser survived but lost a corner. The child said the corner tasted bad. I didn’t ask.

BW found the third one in the bathroom. It was sitting in a puddle of water on the floor, dissolving. The child had tried to clean the toilet. I don’t know why. The toilet wasn’t dirty. She said it looked sad. I think she meant the toilet.

The fourth one ended up on the TV screen. She wanted to remove a smudge. The screen survived. The eraser did not. It left a white residue that looked like a ghost. The ghost of cleaning solutions past.

The fifth one I hid. I put it in the back of the pantry behind the canned beans. The child found it in twenty-two minutes. She said the beans told her. I don’t doubt it. They’ve been in there since 2018. They have nothing better to do.

The sixth eraser is still in the box. I keep it in the car now. Under the driver’s seat. She doesn’t know about it. I will use it to clean the dashboard when she’s asleep. But I know the day is coming when she’ll climb into the back seat and find that orange box. And the eraser will meet its fate. They always do.

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