{"id":1280,"date":"2021-06-07T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=1280"},"modified":"2021-06-06T04:51:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T12:51:30","slug":"a-small-silver-pain-in-the-ass-robot-who-also-cleans-the-floors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2021\/06\/07\/a-small-silver-pain-in-the-ass-robot-who-also-cleans-the-floors\/","title":{"rendered":"A Small, Silver Pain in the Ass Robot Who Also Cleans The Floors"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my spiritual children mentioned the other day that she identified as \u201cshe\/her\u201d but was no longer certain what that really meant. She calls me Xena so there\u2019s that. Being a real woman in our times means being willing and able to whale on anyone to defend your life and family. I know a lot of people don\u2019t believe or understand that, but take it from Xena \u2014 yes it does.<\/p>\n

In 2004, I\u00a0began a story<\/a>\u00a0abou<\/span>t a couple featuring my all-purpose guy, Gary the ergonomic architect, and his wife, a short-sighted, bossy shrew loosely based on awful women I\u2019d known. The idea was \u201cshould parents \u2018improve\u2019 their children with gene therapy \u2014 or should they let nature take its course?\u201d I became interested in the topic because I had become unexpectedly pregnant with my son Anthony and sought genetic counseling. Talking with the counselor inspired my thoughts about the story.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t ready to write about this, so I left the story unfinished.<\/p>\n

It was the first story I wrote after I was able to write again after\u00a0Anthony\u2019s death January 11, 2005<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the story, Gary has interchanges with \u201cHouse\u201d \u2014 an unbranded version of Alexa or Google Home (story initially written 2004).<\/p>\n

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A slight twist on these commercial smart home devices is that Gary designed House, presumably using tech similar to Alexa \u2014 but \u201cHouse\u201d has somewhat of a personality, as well as safety and help features. House is always offering help to Gary.<\/p>\n

When I finished this story, which my ego-mind thinks of as my \u201cRay Carver\u201d story because of its compression and language (it\u2019s exactly 5,000 words long) I knew I\u2019d achieved many personal goals with my short fiction.<\/p>\n

But there is a corollary and it is waiting patiently outside my office. Ah yes, I have an office now! No-fricking-way-yes-way.<\/p>\n

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\u201ca gibbering, tortoise-like Math Buddy . . .\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, even we have a robot vacuum now. This isn\u2019t specifically an endorsement for the brand, but \u201cEufy\u201d is now a member of our household. Because we have no stairs, there\u2019s little fear that even if Eufy goes rogue in the middle of the night, he will trip Bruce, turning him into a quadriplegic like Telly Savalas in the \u201cLiving Doll\u201d\u00a0Twilight Zone<\/em>\u00a0episode. If you haven\u2019t seen that \u2014 it\u2019s basically what the Chucky movies are \u2014 let\u2019s say \u2014 \u201cinspired by.\u201d Good old Talking Tina.<\/p>\n

You know what the most\u00a0awesome<\/em>\u00a0thing about living in our times is?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty good about predicting the colors for next season, thinking of things that will happen next, and imagining products of the future.<\/p>\n

You know that \u201csorting hat\u201d in the Harry Potter stories? That\u2019s the closest metaphor for what\u2019s coming next based on genetic profiles. People have written about it in a very negative way (used for classism, \u201cubermensch\u201d etc). They can f-off and by the way anybody who\u2019d say that or think that is by definition, untermensch trash. They\u2019re scummy crap humans.<\/p>\n

I know a lot of people don\u2019t want that but not wanting that is a lot like the people who don\u2019t want others to have anything, for the sole reason they fear somebody will \u2014 heaven forbid \u2014 get some of their stuff.<\/p>\n

Stuff is stuff. It\u2019s sure as hell not worth fighting over. Though I have to say, \u201cEufy\u201d is somewhere between \u201cstuff\u201d and a living thing. I know that\u2019s controversial but I think \u201cRobots R People too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future is great as long as we make our present moments of today as wonderful as possible.<\/p>\n

I for one am glad that \u201cEufy\u201d has come to live in our home. And I\u2019ll put my genes up against anyone\u2019s. That\u2019s the point. It\u2019s not about you pieces of trash that invest every waking moment in getting over on, ripping off, exploiting, looking down on, or presenting you are \u201cbetter\u201d than others. You\u2019re Carolyn in \u201cPerfect Stranger.\u201d You\u2019re Denny, who can\u2019t even respect his own dad. You\u2019re Donald J. Trump even as you tell yourself how much better you are than him. F off. Go to the lonely, sad, scared place that is your withered and black tiny shriveled heart.<\/p>\n

Live life like a human for a change. You might learn something and enjoy yourself for a moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my spiritual children mentioned the other day that she identified as \u201cshe\/her\u201d but was no longer certain what that really meant. She calls me Xena so there\u2019s that. Being a real woman in our times means being willing and able to whale on anyone to defend your life and family. I know a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1280\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}