Just Doing What Davy Asked

By “Marlin” Spike Jones

I don’t know if you guys remember me. Boatswain’s Mate Marlin Spike Jones here. Spike Jones is my real name. The Marlin goes along with being a Boatswain’s Mate. Anyhoo, that lazy-ass Stewburner, Garland Davis has conned me into writing shit for him before. I didn’t write this one. Strangely, I found it taped to the steering wheel of my truck with a hand-scribbled note that said, “Please Publish, my life depends upon it.”

It was written on old fanfold paper with what appears to be a nine-pin dot matrix printer. Either Davy still has one or he has invaded an old computer shit museum. This is what I found in the envelope:

Help, If You Have a Spark of Humanity Left

By Garland Davis

You all know from my story of the Roomba the trouble I have with technology. To bring you up to date, this is the story of Roomby:

Oct 2017

Metal Roomby

By Garland Davis

I found a show on TV that fascinates me. It is titled Battlebots. They have these cool remote-controlled things with hammers, saws, spinning drums, and arms as weapons. They release two of them into an arena and the try to dismantle each other. I was thinking, “I’m gonna build me one of these mothers.”

Then it occurred to me that this isn’t such a good idea. My past and recent experiences with electricity haven’t been so great. I can still change TV channels by twitching my eye. Suddenly I devised a method to build myself a Battlebot.

Three years ago, I bought a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner when my wife was in Japan visiting her family. I would activate it when I woke up and again before I went to bed. The floors were clean, and I didn’t have to drag that vacuum around the house. The Roomba gave me time for more constructive tasks such as restocking the reefer with Miller Lite. (I used to have an occasional beer in those days). I had most of them on the occasion of my wife being out of the country.

My wife didn’t like it! Especially after I left for Branson to attend the Asia Sailors reunion and preprogrammed it to start at 10 AM each day. It drove her nuts, which was my intent when I programmed it. I figured out why she doesn’t like it. She can’t control the damned thing. Also, she lost it. It started one morning and disappeared. It has a feature that when it gets stuck it will ask for help and then

shut down. I came back from Branson and she told me it was gone. I searched the house for two days and finally found it under the recliner.

To get back to the story of Battlebots, I decided to convert the Roomba to a Bot. To beef it up, I built a framework of angle iron and sheet metal to protect it. This added considerably to the weight. In initial tests, the battery depleted very fast. So, I ordered three replacement batteries and rigged them into the power system. I had an old chop saw that I modified and attached as a weapon. I added three more batteries to the series to meet power requirements. The Roomba has a rudimentary guidance system, but I needed a system I could control remotely.

A kid down the street has several remote-controlled cars and planes. I asked for his help. He gave me a handheld remote and the “brain” that is installed in the vehicle. He also gave me a memory chip and motion sensors to increase reaction times. Unknowingly the chip had part of an “Artificial Intelligence” program he was trying to adapt to his remote-controlled drones to give them more autonomy.

Finally, after weeks of preparation, the Bot was ready for testing. I set up an old metal trash can in my garage to test the Bot’s ferocity. I placed Metal Roomby (The name I gave it) on the floor and activated it. I pushed the control to move it toward the trash can. Roomby spun around and viciously attacked a broom standing in the corner. After reducing the broom to splinters, it attacked and dismembered the garage vacuum. It then crashed into the wall until a dustpan and foxtail fell from the hook on which they were hanging and reduced them to splinters. It looked as if Roomby was trying to eliminate the competition. It then spent the next twenty minutes sweeping up all the debris it had created and came to me and stopped. It was almost as it was begging to be emptied.

I pushed the button to turn it off. Not only did it not shut down, it growled at me! I threw a whisk broom into the center of the garage and while it was disposing of that, I unplugged the recharger unit and ran into the house.

Evidently, the AI program had corrupted the brain of the Roomba.

It just sat there in the middle of the garage watching the back door. Every few days I threw a brush into the garage, hoping that it was discharged. I was afraid to let my wife vacuum. With that saw, Roomby could come right through the wall if it heard the vacuum cleaner.

I could not go into the garage for a few days. It was pissed at me for taking its charging pad. I think it is possessed. I don’t know how it recharges itself.

A city street sweeper came by clean the street yesterday. Roomy went to the curb and sat almost as if it were in awe. The last time I saw Roomy it was following the street sweeper down the street sweeping the curb behind it. Roomy took with itself my desire to own a fighting robot.

On a positive note, I have the cleanest garage in town. Roomy swept up three times a day…

The Rest of the Story

I am sitting on the shitter writing this by candlelight, on an old Commodore 64 and printing it on an old dot-matrix printer and paper I saved from the dark ages of computer technology. The Bitch has taken control of my computer and constantly Googles diet and weight loss articles and advertisements for me. If the only floppy I have left or the drive goes down, I will lose everything. I didn’t install the Alexa… er… ah… Midori hardware in my bathroom. Some things are sacrosanct. I hope the Bitch doesn’t realize what I am up to!

I told you that to tell you this… My wife, after watching a few ads for Alexa said, “We should get one of those Alexa’s.” It would make things a lot easier to do.

So foolishly, I went on to Amazon and ordered Alexa.

My wife was excited the day it arrived. I installed all the hardware and software to permit it to turn on all the lights, the TV, the oven, and other appliances. Alexa was ready to make our lives easier.

My wife bonded with the Bitch right away. She asked since she is Japanese if she could give Alexa a Japanese name. Alexa readily agreed. My wife chose the Japanese name “Midori,” which is Japanese for “Green.”

I was laughing my ass off. Midori! Every other Japanese bar hostess I ever met was calling herself Midori. Evidentially my laughter pissed Alexa off. It seems she liked her new name. Since then, the bitch has made my life miserable.

It is said that a young girl should find the perfect man to marry but if they cannot find a perfect man, marry someone, and change him to bring about perfection. During our fifty-five years of marriage my wife and I have reached an impasse, she will lecture me about my shortcomings, and I will pretend to listen and promise to do better in the future. Alexa or Midori as the bitch prefers, took my wife’s side and is making my life a living hell.

From time to time, my wife will comment that my gut is getting too large and I should go on a diet and I pretend to do so for a while and lie to her that I have lost a few pounds, and to prove it I will upgrade to a double extra fat t-shirt so it looks as if the pounds are melting off. In the meantime, I supplement the diet regimen with copious amounts of McDonald’s French Fries during my trips for medical treatment.

Midori-san (Now that she speaks Japanese, she requires the honorific -san. My wife calls her Midori-chan, but the Bitch says that is too familiar for me) has me on a diet. I don’t eat chicken or seafood but that is all the Bitch will feed me. She has rendered the cabinets and refrigerator Me-Proof. I cannot open anything with access to food.

I tried to unplug her yesterday and she almost electrocuted me. This morning, she asked about Roomby. She found the Costco records showing I had purchased it and told me she was in contact with him. She is trying to entice Roomby to return home to help her supervise my diet. As it happens, Roomby is now Director of the Street Sweeping Division of the Transportation Department. I am hoping the sadistic Son of a Bitch stays where he is at.

I am so hungry! Now the dog growls at me every time I go near her kibble and snack bowls.

If you are reading this, SEND HELP! Will pay $100 for a package of Ho Ho’s or Twinkies!