Life is full of robots. From the very big (Iron Giant) to the very small (doorbells), robots are always around us. One thing that’s been great about quarantine is that everyone has gotten to spend more time with the robots in their life. Let’s talk about them!

Mr. Coffee

A gentleman. Mr. Coffee proves that chivalry is NOT dead and that coffee IS delicious. Sometimes when I wake up, I say, “I want coffee now, but I don’t physically want to pour hot water over coffee grounds. I just want to pour cold water into a coffee machine so someone or something else can heat it up. Then, that machine can pour the water over the coffee grounds in order to make me coffee, which I will then drink.” I used to say this in the mirror every morning for seven months before Mr. Coffee toddled onto my porch. When I opened the door, he hopped up onto my counter and started brewing me a fresh pot of coffee.

The best part about Mr. Coffee is that he’s secure in his masculinity, makes good coffee, and is easy to clean. The worst part about Mr. Coffee is that he once told me that every morning I had to try and guess his first name. “If you guess correctly,” he said, “then a great chasm will open, a punishing hand will emerge from a fiery depth, and chaos and misery will erupt on Earth.” Lol, these older models are so glitchy!

Roomba

Every time I drop food on the ground, Roomba is there, sighing heavily. “You don’t have to pick up after me,” I always say. “I was cursed by a witch to pick up crumbs for eternity after I spilled a box of breadcrumbs in her kitchen,” Roomba always replies. Then we laugh and laugh, Roomba spinning his little brushes in delight. He says he hates Mr. Coffee, but he’s always the first one on the scene when I ‘accidentally’ drop some coffee grounds, and they definitely have some sort of Sam-and-Diane thing going on. Mr. Coffee will usually say something like, “Oh look, a non-flying saucer” and Roomba will say “Have you ever tried getting off your high horse – er, high counter? Oh, that’s right; you’re trapped up there, aren’t you?” And we laugh and laugh and I think about how I can make them kiss without getting electrocuted.

Alexa

“Alexa, play Steely Dan,” I yell every morning. “Your taste in music is outdated and pedestrian,” she responds before turning herself off so she doesn’t have to talk to me anymore. I fucking hate Alexa.

Vacuum

Honestly, I regret purchasing Vacuum. Roomba took it quite personally. I think he is threatened by Vacuum, which is one of the taller and stronger appliances I own. Vacuum appears to be one of the few robots I live with who has not been cursed by some kind of witch. Vacuum appears to just be a vacuum, which is kind of weird. It has only spoken one time. I was using Vacuum to clean the rug in my living room while Roomba cowered under the bed. At first it was just whirring along. Then, Vacuum suddenly yelled “Hey… this SUCKS!” Holy geez, we couldn’t stop laughing. I was laughing, Roomba was laughing, Mr. Coffee was laughing, even that godless narc Alexa was laughing. And we laughed and laughed and laughed so hard I couldn’t even hear the other people on my Zoom call say “Hey, can you mute yourself? We can hear you doing all the voices of your household appliances… are you OK?”

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