ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Today I scrubbed the tub out and I used Comet cleaner to do it, but the whole time I scrubbed I was thinking about the TV advertisement I saw the other night for the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. According to the commercial, the Magic Eraser is super for jobs like soap scum, which is a big problem for our tub because my roommate and her boyfriend like to use lots of products on their hair, plus I like to use bath oil and that stuff is very sticky on the sides of the tub. Anyway, everyone in the ad was so happy to clean their soap scum and floor scuffs with the Magic Eraser that it was more like fun than cleaning. But I have no idea how accurate this is. The same ad shows the little happy-go-lucky Magic Eraser flying all around this neighborhood and cleaning first a bathroom, then a townhouse entryway, then a kitchen counter, etc., etc. My cumulative knowledge of science and common sense tells me that Magic Erasers can’t really fly, even if I see them doing so on a TV ad. So I’m unsure whether the Magic Eraser would really be worth its salt. If Mr. Clean will lie to me about them flying around, he might lie about them cleaning soap scum, too. You don’t know about that guy.

I guess I could just go out and buy it, but then I might be falling into the same trap that I did with the Glade Scented Oil Candles. For weeks I was excited about these things from watching the ads, and when I finally bought one it was OK but not what I expected at all. “The commercial showed the smells from the candle zooming all around the room and filling it with scent and good cheer,” I complained bitterly to my boyfriend.

“Honey, those were…animations,” he explained. Well, I knew that, obviously. But it seems like a terrible lie to insinuate through animations that your product fills a room with overpowering scent that crawls to saturate every corner, and then for the real thing itself to be barely detectable outside a 3 foot radius. I’ll never trust Glade again, that’s what! At least the candle is pretty.