I, Robot

Now I’m not one to willing use technology.  Thus, I’m not usually the right person to ask when something goes wrong with something high tech.  Fine, I’m okay with that.  So, I was over at an older friend’s house the other day.  She made the innocent mistake of asking me if I knew how to operate a robot vacuum cleaner.  Yikes, I’m the last person to ask.  But, I’m not one to ever say no to someone in need of help.  Okay, she turns the thing on.  It spins around a few times.  And then tries to commit suicide.  I’m not kidding here.  It kept banging itself against the wall, over and over again.  Finally, its little dust tray fell out and it gave a horrendous beep and stopped.  Did it succeed?  I was almost afraid to go anywhere near the thing to find out.  I was concerned there were more of its parts and innards on the floor.  Or worse yet, I would find parts in its dust tray because it had eaten itself.  As casually as I could I asked my friend if the robot always did this.  ‘Well, usually it stops before it falls apart. That’s new.’  Was her reply.  Uhm, helpful.  Flipping thru the manual, I quickly figure out there’s no section for what to do if your robot tries to commit suicide.  Not much support coming from that thing.  Alrighty then, I take the bold step of going over to the thing.  And, upon flipping it over, it’s disgusting.  There’s hair in its wheels, its little roller thing, bits of fluff stuck to every inch of it.  Oh, I get it now.  It wasn’t suicidal at all – it was crying out for help.  Turns out my friend had never cleaned the thing.  Somehow, she had this magical thinking that if the robot could clean her house all by itself then the dirt disappeared to goodness only knows where, poof.  You know, I've seen this kind of thinking before.  As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.  But when you sweep things under the rug, so to speak, they don’t really disappear, do they?  So keep your robot vacuum clean and never just ignore a problem in the hopes it will go away.