What the Pet Hair Eraser Actually Erases

The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser arrived on a Tuesday. It was cordless and purple and had the kind of enthusiasm in its marketing photos that made me suspicious. The dog had shed approximately three coats' worth of fur into the living room carpet by then. BW had ordered it. I assembled it.

The first time I used it, the thing worked. This surprised me. Hair came up. Actual hair. Not clogs. Not the usual moment where a regular vacuum decides it has had enough and stops moving entirely. The Pet Hair Eraser did its job for forty-seven minutes straight. I counted. Then the battery died and I felt accomplished in a way that made me understand why people buy things.

The child found it the next morning. It was sitting on the dining room table. I do not know why I left it there. (I do know. I am tired. I leave things places.) She picked it up like it was a hair dryer. Which, to a seven-year-old, it apparently resembles. Before BW could stop her, the child had used the Pet Hair Eraser to vacuum the dog's face.

The dog did not appreciate this. The dog also did not run. The dog simply accepted it as additional evidence that the child was put here specifically to test his patience. The Bissell Pet Hair Eraser, however, found itself clogged with fur so densely packed that it looked like it had inhaled a small animal whole. Which, technically, it had.

I spent twenty minutes taking it apart. Every compartment. The filter. The brush roll. There were things inside that Bissell probably never imagined would be inside. Hair wrapped around the motor housing. A Cheerio. (I do not know where that came from.) The pet hair this device was named to erase had essentially conquered it.

BW watched me clean it. She did not say anything while I was doing it. She waited until I was done, until I had it back together and was plugging it in to charge. Then she said, "Maybe keep it in the garage." Not a suggestion. A directive.

It lives in the garage now. Next to the Uber cleaning kit and the box of things I keep meaning to donate. The dog sheds. The carpet collects it. The Pet Hair Eraser waits in the darkness, recharged and ready, never knowing when or if the child will find it again. It was made to erase pet hair. What it actually erases, I think, is the idea that any single tool can solve anything in a house where a seven-year-old has access to it.

The dog's fur has mostly grown back.

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