I stood in front of the refrigerator. I held the door open staring into the abyss for way too long. I was equally puzzled and amazed that there was so much stuff crammed into it. My wife had gone shopping the previous day and the new items combined with Thanksgiving leftovers the refrigerator had an overstuffed look and feel to it that resembled how I had felt most of the weekend. But since my wife had declared she wasn’t cooking anything until the leftovers were gone I grabbed the plastic containers from the bottom shelf and began preparing the last meal of this Thanksgiving weekend.
The turkey still looked good although not as appetizing as Thursday and the mashed potato’s and stuffing were awkwardly sharing the same plastic container crammed together like commuters on a overcrowded bus who can’t but help brush up against each other. I threw everything on a plate and zapped it in the microwave, added a slice of bread and gravy and settled in for the perfect comfort food on a cold mid-western day….the hot turkey sandwich. It was then I heard the new sound in our house, a beeping and whirring….it was my wife’s new “toy”….the Robo-Vac.
When future anthropologist begin studying our civilization and the inevitable demise of it I often wonder what they will declare was the beginning of the decline. Was it the continued invention of weapons for total destruction, or perhaps it was man’s desires for enrichment and pure simple greed. As I witnessed the Robo-Vac whirring and turning and beeping I became convinced we had just let into our home the very thing that will lead to our destruction.
My wife hates vacuuming, although you would never guess this by looking in the front closet. There sits 2 vacuums each when bought were declared to be the best and most efficient vacuums available. But lets face it no matter how you dress it up it’s still a vacuum and vacuuming is tedious and a bit difficult with the cord and various attachments. And if at this point you are saying to yourself that perhaps I should take over the vacuuming duties let me assure you that I have tried. My wife is just a bit of a germ-o-phobe and neat freak and did I mention her tendencies of obsessive compulsive behavior. Each of my attempts at cleaning usually leaves my wife muttering and declaring that she’ll “just do it herself.”
And this is how we ended up with a beeping, whirring, spinning, methodical disc going back and forth and forth and back across our carpets. After finishing off the leftovers ( I bet you thought this whole blog post would be about Thanksgiving leftovers )…… I proceeded to observe the Robo-Vac. I figured I should probably acquaint myself with the object of our extinction. It was slow and methodical. That’s how all the robots are programmed I deduced as a way to gain our trust. As it was still learning the layout of our house it became stuck in the corner of the spare bedroom. This is the bedroom that has my old tennis racquets and baseball ball bats leaning about and it somehow became wedged between a bat and tennis racquet. I smirked as I dislodged it thinking myself superior.
It soon finished and headed back to it’s charging station or dock as it calls it. I wonder as it sits there the rest of the day if it’s receiving instructions from some mainframe or perhaps a data center somewhere and soon it will implement the grand strategy. I picture it going into silent mode some night and creeping up into our bed and smothering us in our sleep and then going back to it’s dock and reporting to headquarters of it’s success eliminating the humans.
I opened the pantry door and stared into it, it also seemed overly stuffed……my wife breezed through the kitchen and as if reading my mind she said…. “there’s no more pie”….. I sighed and grabbed the box of Cheezits and slumped onto the couch. I pondered the Robo-Vac and it’s meaning as I mindlessly munched Cheezits and because I didn’t want to spend the whole day becoming the embodiment of the Thanksgiving couch potato I got up and brushed all the crumbs onto the carpet. I paused knowing full well what I had just done…. I shrugged…the Robo-Vac would be out again tomorrow and I figured it was better for all of us if he had something to actually vacuum up……best to keep the labor busy so it’s not plotting against us.
Peace and Love,
John
John's Blog 