So everyone knows I'm really into the future, right?
Sci-fi junkie, both in books and movies. Computer nerd like whoa; nothing gets me hotter than a really good bout of programming.
I'm even known to regularly spout "Where are all the flying cars? This is supposed to be the future, I was promised flying cars!"
So ever since the first time I laid eyes on a Roomba, I've coveted them like nothing else. Even when I heard they were super lame, and you'd be better off hiring a toddler to sweep your floors for better results, I still wanted one like a 12 year old girl wants a pony. Just the idea of a robot vacuum under my command got my mind racing at the potential possibilities. In my brain it's like Rosie from the Jetsons, but without any of that smart-mouth backtalk.
Alas, I was wicked poor at the time, and have been pretty much forever since. And I never really had enough floor to warrant a dedicated living vacuuming machine, since I could easily clean my whole place in approximately 10 minutes once every month. Not even my lust for the future could rationalize the purchase.
And so my dream of robot ownership languished.
Then, two fortuitous things happened right at the same time: They introduced the 530+ series of Roombas, and I got my new apartment. This new series continued on the functionality improvements of the last few years (edge cleaning brushes, proximity sensors, smarter algorithms, etc.), but most importantly they added a lighthouse/beacon feature, which allows these new awesome robots to do multiple rooms at once, and then return back to their homes, like the android-future my mind had always promised.
And the new apartment was huge, better than 400 more square feet of space, all of it done in fake hardwood floors. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep non-carpeted floors clean? Well if you're as lazy as I am, it's basically impossible. Once a week exhaustive sweeping isn't enough. You need something like 3 sweepings every 10 days, and you have to move furniture, otherwise the dust bunnies gather in dark places and plan their revenge on the living world.
Thus, I have been biding my time, waiting for the Roomba price to drop into the realm of my rationalization. It took nearly a full year, but finally it happened this month, and I'm the proud owner of the cutest little cleaning machine this side of the Mississippi river.
I call him Bad Robot.
Mostly because I'm constantly shouting "No! Bad Robot!"
See, the thing I was most worried about when I got him was that he would gain sentience in the middle of night and try to murder me and take over the apartment as his own, tired of his position of servitude.
This proved to be even more ludicrous than it sounds, because goddamn, Bad Robot is as dumb as a post.
Things I Have Yelled at Bad Robot For (Just This Week)
- Trying to climb into the fireplace and getting stuck on the marble (3 times)
- Getting an empty Pixi Stick lodged in its brushes (4 times)
- Trying to eat the drapes in the living room (2 times)
- Running into the entertainment center so hard that he knocked down the Playstation controller
- Trying to eat said Playstation controller's cord immediate afterwards
- Getting stuck under the table, despite there only being two chairs around it
- Attempting to gain access to my bedroom by repeatedly ramming into the door, because it wasn't fully latched
- Pushing the mat at the front door all the way into the back hallway
- Refusing to clean near the kitchen because the kitchen doors jut out approximately 2 inches from the wall
- Missing his docking station by 1 inch,
- Then getting confused and pushing the docking station around until it faced the wall,
- Then getting really mad because he can tell there's a docking station nearby but can't access it,
- And in response starting to ram himself repeatedly into the coffee table.
Seriously, he's not smart.
But the thing is because he's not, our place is constantly in a state of previously unknown clean. Because as long as you keep half an eye on him, he will indeed vacuum up everything, and keeps the place dirt and dust bunny free. And since you have to pick up any cords, or big things on he ground that he might run into so that he can actually function at his job, we're running at something like 90% clean house at all times.
It's nuts.
I'm so happy, I could burst.
Now if only they would get around to making those flying cars I was promised, I could finally be happy with my place in future.
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