What the Pet Hair Eraser Actually Erases

The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser showed up in a box last Tuesday. BW had ordered it. She did not ask my permission. She did not need to. The dog sheds like it's being paid per follicle, and the regular vacuum has been dying a slow, wheezing death for six months now.

The Pet Hair Eraser is a handheld thing. Cordless. Blue and black. It looked confident in the box. Like it had solved problems before. Like this one would not be different.

I charged it that night. Held it in my hand. It felt substantial. Professional. A thing that meant business.

The child found it on the kitchen counter Wednesday morning.

By Wednesday afternoon, it was a microphone. She had discovered that if you held the trigger down, it made a high-pitched whine that was perfect for extending certain syllables into operatic territory. My name became JIIIIIMMMMM. The dog became RUUUUUUFUSSSSSS. The kitchen became a concert hall, and the Pet Hair Eraser became an instrument of chaos.

I took it back. Recharged it. Sat down to actually use it on the furniture.

It worked. This is the part that surprised me. It actually pulled hair off the couch in a way the regular vacuum never could. Long strands of cream-colored dog hair wound up in the little clear canister. I could see the evidence. Proof that something was happening. (The regular vacuum just coughs and quits.)

I felt like a man doing something. A thing that needed doing, being done.

Then I forgot it on the passenger seat of the Uber.

Three passengers later—some woman going to the airport, a man with his groceries, an older couple headed to the casino—nobody said anything about it. I only noticed when I was parked in the driveway at night, reaching for something that wasn't there anymore.

BW found it in the lost and found at Uber Support. Apparently the woman going to the airport had left a note. She described it as "blue handheld cleaning device, appears to have never been used."

I picked it up on Saturday. It smelled like someone else's car. It had a little sticker on the bottom now: Property of Uber.

It still works. The dog still sheds. The child still occasionally finds it and makes those sounds, and I still occasionally remember to charge it and use it on the couch. But mostly it sits on the shelf in the garage next to the extension cords I keep meaning to organize and the paint cans from 2019.

The Pet Hair Eraser did exactly what it was supposed to do. It's not the vacuum's fault that nothing in this house stays where you put it for very long.

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.