Writing on the Wall

The subject of this entry is literal. The youngest (would you believe he’ll be two in April?) posted his artwork near the front door on three sides of the column. He didn’t have the good sense to use pretty colors… instead, he used ugly brown. One of my least favorite colors. My first car was brown. Thankfully, I liked the car itself so I could live with the color for as long as I drove it.
Anyway, the timing couldn’t have been better if I had to put up with something like that. I got fantasik OxyPower Multi-Purpose Cleaner. It claims to have a million uses around the house and does the job of multiple cleaners, so you won’t need so many bottles. I knew we were the perfect family to test this thing consider all the cr@p on the carpet, handles, and who knows where else.
This was an ultimate test. I would think getting stains off the wall is easier than off the carpet. I held a competition between fantastik and Magic Eraser. fantasik hit the first squirt and upon dripping down, color smeared. I dabbed over the artwork and it got lighter, but wouldn’t disappear. 0 points.
Magic Eraser came to bat. Before getting to work, it took a shower because it works when wet. I began dabbing it and rubbing it up and down the marks. It produced fewer smears, but it couldn’t make the lines disappear. They faded, but are still noticeable. Instead of brown, we have khaki. I can see the art from my desk. 0 points.
I tried different techniques based on the products’ instructions and experience. No one could make the artwork disappear into thin wall.
I’m a parent of three kids with a lot of things going on. I don’t have time to research and figure out what product and technique would get the column back to its old self. Why can’t cleaners ever work as easily as the commercials make them?
I’ll try Fantastik on other things to see if it can do what it claims. So far, it has failed one test. It doesn’t do markers on a wall.
I hate cleaning and am lousy at it. Can never get anything spotless. I’m a neat and clean freak—it’s a hair-puller to put up with stains even though I’ve learned to loosen up about a spotless house… after all, three kids, y’know?