If I Hide it Back Here...

I thought that my furniture had escaped the artistic hand of my son. Not so much. When I tipped the left back cushion on my couch forward yesterday afternoon there were long black lines slashed across it. Considering the fact that he could have chosen a much worse spot to doodle I tried to keep my wits about me and stay calm. I am proud to say that I didn’t shout. Much.

Of course the first thing to do was to call my mom and see if she could suggest any way in which to eradicate the marker from the cushion. It would seem that none of her children had ever done such a thing, so she wasn’t sure what to recommend. After mom, I find the Internet to be a great source for information on such matters. Apparently other people’s children have done things like destroy furniture through art.

The two most popular suggestions for my dilemma were to apply hairspray or Oxy Clean carpet cleaner. Since I don’t own hairspray I thought I’d try the Oxy Clean. After one treatment the lines are still visible, but greatly diminished in darkness. I realize that I should have taken before and after pictures, however I was in too much of a rush to see if it would actually work.

I scrubbed that couch so hard that I’m surprised I didn’t burn a hole through the fabric with the friction of my elbow grease. The young man received quite a brutal scrubbing as well. Permanent marker isn’t super easy to remove from flesh. And I thought that if the consequence of drawing on oneself was a fierce and brutal washing the child would be less likely to repeat such behavior in the near future.