The Rookie Mama
“Rosie is stuck” – Our Google Home device.
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If you’ve watched the Wild Robot or Wall-E films, you’d understand our penchant for curiously treating our ‘smart’ devices as family.
Perhaps we brought this phenomenon on ourselves because we name the darn things and talk to them, or conceivably it’s due to their automation and task completion that has become such an integral part of our day-to-day, each playing its role among the wild in the fanciful Cote homestead.
Alarms, LED lights, music, water usage and conservation – we named that one ’Mario the Plumber’ – There’s a smart-commodity for every little thing, each designed to assist in its own way.
Xennials and Millenials may remember the quirky Disney flick ‘Smart House’, released nearly three decades ago – quirky in that the computerized-home-experiment-gone-wrong came in the form of the ‘Married… with Children’ matriarch as a ‘90s AI, to the tune of ‘Slam Dunk da Funk’ boy band soundtrack fame (If you know, you know.)
Despite all that, the dated movie still serves as a forerunner of sorts to today’s smart device life.
Its 1999 release ahead of all that futuristic Y2K panic may not be coincidence.
But I digress – Back to Rosie.
Rosie was our Roomba robot vacuum, who dutifully cleaned our floors each morning via automation for more than a decade.
Despite our seemingly impeccable floors, dear Rosie humbled us each day when we emptied out the daily dirt and dust – There was always lots of it.
Those older than the Xennial/Millenial circuit will recall her namesake from The Jetsons – Now that’s a robot ahead of her time.
Sadly, our Rosie fell beyond repair in recent months, and we knew it was time to send her to the robot malt shop in the sky, also known as the Roomba recycling program.
The boys and I sadly thanked sweet old Rosie for her service and shipped her off, even as she rallied and tried to whirr her wheels to life a last time, to no avail.
Days passed; we purchased a new, more powerful and bells-and-whistles-y robot vacuum whom after much debate was aptly named R2-D2.
As Rosie had been, R2 was automated to vacuum our home on a schedule.
And when my husband accidentally commanded our Google Home device to start ‘Rosie’ – rather than ‘R2’ – Google simply responded that she was stuck, a solemn reminder that our beloved robot vacuum of yore was with us no more, and somewhere far, far away where the wild robots are.
My husband and I weren’t instant embracers of the smart-everythings.
We’ve been hesitant to accept it, as we feared losing some autonomy.
There are enough brothers in this house; we didn’t need another Big Brother.
A few years ago, we found ourselves needing to upgrade our wireless internet, and these updates came with smart speakers by happenstance.
Not only did we come to appreciate this added bonus, but we found the speakers to be useful – they are great at settling debates, sharing random trivia facts and knock-knock jokes, after all.
Then, our new heat splits came with full thermostat control via phone app, and this has been staggeringly useful as well.
As a busy mama who never has enough free hands, the hands-free commanding of these simple directives has been extraordinarily helpful.
There’s no fancy feeling like asking my Christmas tree to turn off its lights on a December evening.
What futuristic world is this place?
These smart home devices are assistive, certainly.
But our family remains old-school at heart, and by relying on these devices for the mundane, we are all the more afforded the mini luxuries to do what matters most.
Being aided by these attainable and useful technologies that didn’t exist until recent years – certainly not affordably if they did – allows us to thrive in all the old-school things that matter most.
We spend time having meaningful conversation, reading paperbacks, playing board games, camping, swimming, cannonball-dousing, and taking part in the wonderfully tangible pastimes of which core memories are truly made.
We’re grateful for the technology of assistance, the Rosies, the Marios, the R2-D2s of the smart home world so we can do what we truly love.
And without further ado, you should have a dance party of your own to ‘Slam Dunk da Funk’ like it’s 1999.
You won’t regret it.
– Michelle Cote lives in southern Maine with her husband and four sons, and enjoys camping, distance running, biking, gardening, road trips to new regions, arts and crafts, soccer, and singing to musical showtunes – often several or more at the same time! <
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