My First Time Using The Magic Box

I grabbed my nasty white sneakers from the closet – seriously, they looked like I'd gone mud-wrestling in them. My buddy Mike kept bragging about his automatic shoe cleaner, so I caved in and bought the same model.

Plugged the machine into the wall socket and almost tripped over the power cord. Filled the water tank under the nozzle until it stopped gurgling, then poured in that blue cleaning solution that came with it. Smelled like cheap perfume but whatever.

The Operation

Stuffed my right shoe into that plastic dome thingy, making sure the toe was jammed all the way forward. Hit the "START" button and the machine started humming like a refrigerator. Saw the spray nozzle pop down – kinda like those car wash arms – and whoosh! It started squirting soapy water while the shoe platform rotated slow.

• First it soaked the whole shoe for about 30 seconds (heard sloshy sounds inside)
• Then the brush heads dropped down and started scrubbing the toe area like crazy
• After that came this weird vacuum sucky noise drying everything out

Took less than 5 minutes per shoe. When the beeper went off, I pulled them out. Still damp but looking way better except...

Oops Moment

Forgot to remove the laces! They came out all twisted with weird blue stains. Lesson learned: Take off laces and insoles first. Also noticed the machine didn't get deep scuff marks on the rubber sides – had to hand-scrub those later with a toothbrush.

Final verdict? Works like a dishwasher but for shoes. Great for weekly maintenance but not miracle worker for destroyed kicks. Pro tip: Use distilled water or you'll get white crusty stains from tap water minerals!