Roomba my Heart
As promised, happier topic this time.
Last Wednesday, something glorious happened: I got a Roomba. And it is everything I dreamed it would be.
For the unenlightened, a Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner that zooms around your apartment or house and cleans the floors with little to no involvement from you. You just set the timer and watch it go.
And wonder of wonder, it works. It really does clean every inch of the floor and it really does pick up dirt and lint. When it’s done, it miraculously goes home to its base to re-charge for the next mission. (No lie- the owner’s manual calls each cleaning a mission.)
Thursday morning, I sent my new Favorite Thing on its trial mission. Then I sat for at least twenty minutes agog at the wonders of the Roomba. It was like watching TV but more productive. And since I’m me, I immediately gave it a name and a personality.
Her name is Ruby. I like to think of her as a wizened old woman who chain smokes on my porch on her breaks. There’s turquoise shadow smeared well over the boundaries of her eyelids and she teases her crackling hair into stiff curls along her forehead. She’s the type that was probably a groupie for a heavy metal group in the 80s and therefore has sagging rose tattoos on her shoulders. She listens to me chatter incessantly about the trials of my job and the flirtations from last weekend with a smirk and an expression that clearly speaks of the insignificance of my life. As she sucks up dog hair and bread crumbs, she drifts into fantasies of hugging the leather clad back of a Hell’s Angel. She speaks with the rasp of someone whose vocal cords have been pickled by jager bombs and whiskey and unfiltered cigarettes.
Actually, the Roomba looks more like a well manicured and efficient German maid named Olga, but I think the crusty and worldly Ruby is much more interesting.
I think I may be anthropomorphizing a little more than is healthy.
Anyway, despite my love for Ruby and my awe at her thoroughness and appreciation for her talents, Shelby basically hates Ruby. This isn’t surprising considering that Shelby despises anything that distracts me from her.
When Ruby first played her opening musical sequence (all the while mumbling to herself, “I used to sleep with Axl Rose. This is bullshit”), Shelby’s bat like ears sprang to full attention. Her eyes tracked Ruby’s progress across my floor with bewilderment that quickly faded to suspicion. An interloper! Another creature under a foot tall moving steadily across the floor- uninvited! And it makes noise!
It didn’t take long for Shelby to work up her courage to approach the newcomer. Unfortunately for Shelby, Ruby has an automatic dirt sensor, so she quickly changed course to follow Shelby around. Shelby scampered away with an indignant bark and darted under my legs to regroup.
Once Ruby returned to her path around the sofa, Shelby re-emerged with a new game plan: surprise attack. She lunged for the hard plastic cover with a battle cry, darting forward and backward at Ruby with agility shocking for an octogenarian schnauzer. Finally, fearing for the safety of both of them, I scooped Shelby’s writhing body up and moved her across the room. She struggled for a bit and then quieted down to size up her enemy. Ruby continued her steady progression around the room as if
nothing unusual had happened (I suppose if you woke up to find yourself in bed with The Edge and Slash, you would be nonchalant about a yapping dog).
From this point on, Shelby determined Ruby to be a mightier opponent that she originally suspected and decided to give her a wide berth. Now, when Ruby is trolling around and I call Shelby to me, she will take the longest path around Ruby possible and stay close to my ankles for the duration of the mission.
I figure it’s a good thing that Shelby has decided I’m the alpha dog in this scenario rather than Ruby. Frankly, I’m not sure Ruby isn’t planning to kill me in my sleep by sucking my face off with her infrared sensors.
I live in awe and fear of my Roomba and I can’t believe I waited so long to get one.
Last Wednesday, something glorious happened: I got a Roomba. And it is everything I dreamed it would be.
For the unenlightened, a Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner that zooms around your apartment or house and cleans the floors with little to no involvement from you. You just set the timer and watch it go.
And wonder of wonder, it works. It really does clean every inch of the floor and it really does pick up dirt and lint. When it’s done, it miraculously goes home to its base to re-charge for the next mission. (No lie- the owner’s manual calls each cleaning a mission.)
Thursday morning, I sent my new Favorite Thing on its trial mission. Then I sat for at least twenty minutes agog at the wonders of the Roomba. It was like watching TV but more productive. And since I’m me, I immediately gave it a name and a personality.
Her name is Ruby. I like to think of her as a wizened old woman who chain smokes on my porch on her breaks. There’s turquoise shadow smeared well over the boundaries of her eyelids and she teases her crackling hair into stiff curls along her forehead. She’s the type that was probably a groupie for a heavy metal group in the 80s and therefore has sagging rose tattoos on her shoulders. She listens to me chatter incessantly about the trials of my job and the flirtations from last weekend with a smirk and an expression that clearly speaks of the insignificance of my life. As she sucks up dog hair and bread crumbs, she drifts into fantasies of hugging the leather clad back of a Hell’s Angel. She speaks with the rasp of someone whose vocal cords have been pickled by jager bombs and whiskey and unfiltered cigarettes.
Actually, the Roomba looks more like a well manicured and efficient German maid named Olga, but I think the crusty and worldly Ruby is much more interesting.
I think I may be anthropomorphizing a little more than is healthy.
Anyway, despite my love for Ruby and my awe at her thoroughness and appreciation for her talents, Shelby basically hates Ruby. This isn’t surprising considering that Shelby despises anything that distracts me from her.
When Ruby first played her opening musical sequence (all the while mumbling to herself, “I used to sleep with Axl Rose. This is bullshit”), Shelby’s bat like ears sprang to full attention. Her eyes tracked Ruby’s progress across my floor with bewilderment that quickly faded to suspicion. An interloper! Another creature under a foot tall moving steadily across the floor- uninvited! And it makes noise!It didn’t take long for Shelby to work up her courage to approach the newcomer. Unfortunately for Shelby, Ruby has an automatic dirt sensor, so she quickly changed course to follow Shelby around. Shelby scampered away with an indignant bark and darted under my legs to regroup.
Once Ruby returned to her path around the sofa, Shelby re-emerged with a new game plan: surprise attack. She lunged for the hard plastic cover with a battle cry, darting forward and backward at Ruby with agility shocking for an octogenarian schnauzer. Finally, fearing for the safety of both of them, I scooped Shelby’s writhing body up and moved her across the room. She struggled for a bit and then quieted down to size up her enemy. Ruby continued her steady progression around the room as if
nothing unusual had happened (I suppose if you woke up to find yourself in bed with The Edge and Slash, you would be nonchalant about a yapping dog).From this point on, Shelby determined Ruby to be a mightier opponent that she originally suspected and decided to give her a wide berth. Now, when Ruby is trolling around and I call Shelby to me, she will take the longest path around Ruby possible and stay close to my ankles for the duration of the mission.
I figure it’s a good thing that Shelby has decided I’m the alpha dog in this scenario rather than Ruby. Frankly, I’m not sure Ruby isn’t planning to kill me in my sleep by sucking my face off with her infrared sensors.
I live in awe and fear of my Roomba and I can’t believe I waited so long to get one.
posted by Maryann at 6:36 PM
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