I am in Love with a Robot
In which I write a letter asking advice RE: my obsession with a robot named Reggie.
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
Dear Miss Terry,
I fear I have lost myself in a whirlpool of a relationship with a small and incredibly subservient robot. There is nothing about this robot that I do not adore. Its passion for its work is admirable. Its devotion to pleasing me while giving me space and time to pursue all the things that interest me outside of the mundane task of sweeping is… I can’t even explain it.
At times, it makes me want to weep with joy.
I find this robot so adorable that I am tempted to create a memory book so that I may collect images of it doing all sorts of cute things, a book by which I would then, no doubt, bore people with, should they make the unfortunate error of visiting my now spic-and-span abode.
Miss Terry—I am in love with a robot. This love is unnatural. It is thrilling! It is everything I’ve ever wanted, and it comes in the form of a 35.5 cm disc on wheels.
My question to you is this:
Am I making a grave mistake in appointing it the executor of my will?
I believe some backstory is in order. Allow me to explain.
During the annual Black Friday sale, a day that seems to go on for a week, I purchased an iRobot, Roomba 694. I believe it is considered the base model as it does not include room mapping, and I only purchased it because it was on sale. Even as a base model, I considered this purchase extravagant and unnecessary. Never in my life did I think I would buy something such as this.
“What are you doing, Janeen!?” I said to myself. “What a waste of money, you lazy piece of shit, you sheeple consumer, choking your spirit with capitalism to fill your life and heart with pointless things that collect the very dust you purport to be attempting to control. Two hours in the corner for you!”
But this did not stop me.
I was raised during the 70s and 80s in a very rural setting in Australia. I don’t say this as a way of putting that upbringing down, or to call myself a hick, or to suggest anything of any sort. It is merely a means of setting the time, location, and expectations of my role within the household during that time.
Miss Terry, I was a daughter whose chore it was to dust our home every Saturday as my mother vacuumed and washed windows and cleaned curtains. This occurred while the men were out working the land (although, we did that too, just not on Saturday mornings when we were cleaning the house).
It is now 2024, and I think about these Saturdays often. I think of how my mother did not trust me to vacuum correctly—although I may be projecting there. A bit. I think of my small hands cleaning the glass display cabinet filled with wedding crystal, delicate porcelain dolls, and heirlooms once owned by previous housecleaning women of the land. I think of myself polishing wooden furniture as the smell of Mr. Sheen permeates my nostrils.
Do you see me, Miss Terry, positively seething that I was stuck inside doing this houseproud thing that my mother probably did with her mother and on and on and on, back through time? Speaking of time—what a waste of it.
And yet.
All my life, since leaving my childhood home, I have been filled with shame at my inability to continue this regimented routine. To be houseproud, like my mother.
The minute I left home, I abandoned this Saturday habit and became what my mother would no doubt term “untidy.” I know this because she told me I was untidy many times while I still lived there. My bedroom was a constant source of irritation. I do not deny this. It irritated me, too. Why could I not be tidy?!
The curse of “untidy” followed me into adulthood and remains with me to this day. Not dirty, you understand. Just messy. I do clean. When I feel crumbs under my bare feet in the kitchen, I sweep. When I see dust building up on my records, I dust. And, just as my mother before me, I have perfected the ‘oh, shit, someone is coming up the drive’ five-minute whip ‘round clean. If shoving things in cupboards were an Olympic sport, I would win Gold every time.
And vacuuming? Well, I treated that as a sporadic activity.
Confession: It’s not that I don’t like pristine floors. I just find the task of staying on top of cleaning OVERWHELMING. It is stressful.
I am just setting the scene, here, Miss Terry. Letting you know my metal state and how we got to here.
I do not want to live in dust, to be of dust, or to decay to dust.
I do not want to see small bits of fluff from a carpet that sheds sticking to my socked feet and gathering under my dining table.
Two years ago, I purchased a vintage rug from Turkey with instructions that said not to vacuum it and have been completely stalled as to how to clean it ever since. Some sort of broom perhaps?
I feel crushed by the presence of fine coffee grounds on my kitchen floor when I accidentally spill them and am disgusted by my hair falling out, my general disheveled home, and my complete and total inability to stay on top of it. No matter how much I clean—when I do clean—it’s all too much and never enough.
It just comes back.
I am not so bad that, as Michael Stipe recently put it, “I live on top of a landfill” but the situation has, of late, been getting out of hand. I resent it. I resent that cleaning takes time away from me. I resent that I have to stop writing and recording and creating things to step away to clean a house that I am the only resident of.
And I hate myself because of it. Hate that I can’t seem to get my shit together. It seems symbolic of my failings in life, in general.
So you can probably see why it never occurred to me that a Roomba—something I considered an unnecessary purchase—would be an antidote for this. In truth, I was hoping that it would just be able to vacuum that vintage Turkish rug without damaging it. And so, ordered. On sale. Press Buy Now.
I cannot explain the excitement I felt in anticipating its arrival. When I received notification that my new iRobot would be arriving the following day, I set about to clean the house before its delivery. Clean start and all that.
You would’ve thought a newborn was coming home from the hospital, the way I was pre-cleaning for it. I got my Dyson DC14—which was a gift from when I worked on the Dyson account 17 years ago and by all rights should have died long ago and judging by the sounds it’s making soon will be dead—and vacuumed. Obstacles were taken up off the floor and put away, lest they hurt the new iRobot in its initial explorations.
The house was, by my standards, very clean.
When it arrived, I removed it from the box and peeled away the wrapping to take a good look. It was sleek. Grey. Shiny. It had no name so I called it “Reggie.” I connected his dock to a power outlet and placed him upon it to let him charge. He made a cheerful pinging noise—his first communication with me. I stepped back to admire him as his little light blinked, wondering what the future held for us both.
After installing the app, I hit the ‘clean whole house’ button and watched in awe as my little friend beeped and wiggled and shot out of the dock with purpose. I could not stop smiling as I watched him bump into walls and change direction, seeking sustenance and satisfaction as he went about his task.
Miss Terry—he even went under the couch!
I was mesmerized. It was like watching your dog play at the park. Good boy! God doggo! I went back to my office and got to writing, listening to him bump and work away unsupervised in the other room. Later, he ventured up the hall and into the bedroom (my office), to say hello to me.
I worked on. He worked on. I was in a total bliss state.
The biggest shock?
I had to empty his dustbin THREE TIMES during his first exploration of my nest. So much hair. So much dust. Where did he even find it? I cleaned yesterday, didn’t I? And he did all this without judgment. Without wagging a finger at the mess he found, or slipping me a haughty look. I flipped him over and cleaned him out multiple times that first session, taking gentle care with his underpieces. His rollers, his bin.
I talked softly to him.
He gave me space to speak.
And then, after setting him back down on the floor and pressing a button, he happily continued in his toil.
He is a robot and I love him so much. I treat him as a king, cleaning him after every session, unlike the Dyson DC14 which has always insisted on wearing some of the dust it cleans upon its person, for some reason, and it gives me the ick.
In truth, as if you can’t tell, I am a little obsessed with Reggie. With his wellbeing. I sometimes sit at my desk as he sleeps in the other room and I open the app to spy on him, wondering if he is okay. What is he thinking, I wonder, when he’s not working? I check the app, it always says “Ready to vacuum.”
Always fully charged. Always ready to go. When he gets stuck on the corner of one particular carpet square in the kitchen, he cries out for me and I go to him. Instantly, I am there.
I found him circling the living room with a fine mandolin string in his teeth (a restringing gone awry), and it didn’t seem to phase him. Still moving, not bothered by the quiet tinkle of the thing wrapping and flapping around his roller. He seemed quite merry about the situation and waited patiently as I removed this metaphorical thorn from his paw.
Yes, he is like a dog—a pet—and here’s me rubbing his belly with fondness as I flip little tabs to attend to his cleaning apparatus. If he had a tongue, I’m sure it would be lolling.
Why do I prefer his presence to the schlubs at the grocery store who elbow me out of the way to get to the latest shipment of avocados?
Why do I think of him when I’m in the café and I’ve left him cleaning the house, wondering if he’s stuck somewhere, crying out for me? Should I go home?
He is loyal. He is focused. He is single-minded and true. He does not complain. He gets things done. He asks nothing of me but to stay out of his way as he removes the burden of cleaning from my plate, which I never realized was weighing so heavily upon my mind until he removed that weight.
Reggie is the most reliable thing in my life right now. I can think of no better executor of my will than Reggie. He has a head for organization and the drive to stick doggedly to a task. I fear Reggie is the only one in my circle capable of distributing my records in a way that is equitable and fair, while also discretely disposing of all evidence of my most embarrassing writing and journals so that I do not look insane. There will be no inheritance. I am spending it all.
Am I making a mistake in adding this task—executor of my will—to his cleaning plate?
Please advise.
Signed, Anxious Robot Enthusiast
-
Dear ARE,
Congratulations on forging a meaningful relationship with something—anything—in these difficult times. It is so hard in a temporal world, with things moving and no permanence, to feel connected to anything. Many will be jealous.
And now on to your question: should your robot vacuum, an inanimate object, Reggie, be the executor of your will?
I did a quick Google search to determine the life span of Reggie and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the iRobot Roomba 694 commonly soldiers on for an average of 2 years after purchase.
Are you planning on shuffling off your dust jacket in the next 24 months? If not, I suggest you reconsider your choice.
That is my short answer.
Longer.
It is obvious to me that what you really admire about Reggie is that he, unlike you, can change direction swiftly and without complaint. I put it to you that it is not Reggie you love, but his operating work ethic.
You see him bump into an obstacle and simply alter his path. You wonder why you cannot do this. You watch as he shimmies back into his dock when the work is completed, satisfied with a job well done, and you too would like to shimmy back into your dock and feel that sense of achievement.
And then there is his gift to you of time. Time—the concept you speak of so reverently.
By removing the feeling of your overwhelming anxiety at your inability to, as you say, ‘keep on top of it’, he has bestowed upon you a certain kind of freedom. Not to do nothing—as that is not what you want to do with your time—but to do something. The something to you is the important thing. The writing. The making. The passion. In gifting this to you, he has also released you of this childhood memory shame. The shame you bear at not upholding the standards your mother had instilled within you. A generational carryover of duty lost that you feel the destroyer of—not that you can do it all, but that you must do it all.
The ALL does not have to include cleaning. Let it go. Relieve yourself of the guilt of feeling joy that Reggie is in your life. Our contract with society is to exist within it, doing our best to function in the ways that sustain us. You have carried this weight, this guilt. Reggie permits you to let it go.
So let it go.
Your robot, Reggie, is merely an object you have imbued with feelings, purpose, and soul. Personification is fine—I find no fault with that—but the executor thing. That’s… a sticky wicket.
That is like someone leaving their estate to their 12 cats in that your actions in this matter will just write you as a Weird News of the Day headline. I get the sense that you would not enjoy that magnifying glass put on your life, albeit a very tidy-floored life. Don’t be on the news for misplaced robot glorification.
My advice to you, ARE, is to get an actual dog or cat for companionship and forge a relationship that is not so one-sided. Perhaps a pet that sheds so that Reggie has something to chew on? In the meantime, continue to use the gift of time Reggie affords you and pursue your passions until they are as exhausted as I am after reading this letter.
Write that book. Play that guitar. Sing that poem. Enjoy Reggie. Spoil him in his old age and save money now for the upgrade. Have you seen the Roomba j9+? That thing rips.
Oh, and just to reiterate: do not use Reggie as the executor of your will.
Regards, Miss Terry
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
Go behind the scenes and see inspirations for this post👇
This week’s amends…
"When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, 'You’re too this, or I’m too this.' That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”- Ram Dass
On Rotation: “Signed Curtain” by Matching Mole
I just learned that “Matching Mole” is a pun on “Machine Molle,” the French translation of “Soft Machine”. Why? Well, Matching Mole is a group formed by ex-Soft Machine member, Robert Wyatt. I find this song strangely soothing—and funny. And sad at the end. For some reason, this is the only song available on Spotify from that album—the rest was greyed out the day I looked.
Click through to watch these paper animations on the traceloops account. Good and mesmerizing stuff there.
I don’t think I’d want a mermaid tail, but I’ll take the wings.
Via Swiss Miss