YoIn national news, a problem has arisen with the robot vacuum cleaner. Our old, noisy vacuum cleaner was annoying me so much, repeatedly banging against the skirting board and swallowing the carpet tassels in a mess, that I stomped hard on the off button every time I caught it trying to do its job.
The new one is less stupid and relentless, but just as loud, and because my husband programmed it, it seems to be always on. It shuts off at ten in the morning and is still roaring when I come downstairs, hours later. After a brief pause, it comes back on in the afternoon. It is so loudly industrious that I feel both debilitated and embarrassed by its productivity. Let me look at the Internet in peace, robot!
Last week I made an inquiry about this; apparently my husband, who is indifferent to noise, has ordered it to clean the entire downstairs in the morning and the kitchen in the afternoon. I have questions like: it's just him, me, and the dog, how much hair and fur can we lose in a 24-hour period? But since I'm invariably the idiot in our marriage and try not to be, I went along with it. However, for sanity's sake, if my husband isn't home by 10 a.m., I hit “Send Home” on the vacuum cleaner app the moment I hear it start humming, figuring that what he can't see won't hurt him.
This would have been a perfect arrangement, if it weren’t for the robot itself. It has started refusing to return to its base, sitting in the hallway sulking until my husband finds it, or going home and stumbling back out seconds later. Worst of all, one night it decided to start cleaning at 9pm, totally defying its schedule and nighttime “do not disturb” setting. We tried turning it off remotely, but it just kept buzzing away until I stomped on it, just like old times. Have I pissed off a sentient technology by not letting it do its job? Now I’m just praying it doesn’t swallow a razor blade and come for our Achilles tendons.
