Roomba

 

Roomba

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

We have a self-emptying electric floor vacuum. It is an iRobot Roomba. It has been set to follow a particular pattern in whichever room it’s put to work. I wouldn’t have bothered, as I quite like the random nature of things, but Inspector Gadget cannot resist programming everything in sight.

He’d programme me if he could.

I have mentioned before that we have a vast collection of remote controls. I long for the days of simple on/off switches on easy-to-understand devices.

The current Roomba (the first one was donated to Susannah and was called Veronica) is called Felicity. I don’t know why we gave the thing a name – it’s not our usual habit to name appliances – and we can never remember the correct name, anyway. It buzzes round, noisily, drawing attention to the fact that it’s doing a job that any human could do. Eventually, the bin is full, and the machine trawls off to its station to empty itself. This involves even more noise and a horrible smell, causing all around to waft their hands in front of their faces.

It does a decent job, thoroughly investigating every nook and cranny, spinning, and sweeping until it is satisfied that it has gathered every last mote of dust. The floors look spotless for all of five seconds, before one of the two or four-legged animals moves, and then the poor Roomba weeps on its charging station.

We have a standard vacuum cleaner, too – one that has to be operated by a human. It looks very smart, but has so many filters that it’s almost impossible to use. As soon as one filter is clogged, which happens ferociously fast in our household, it has to be gently teased into work again. This is done by cleaning it, usually with a handheld, battery-driven vacuum cleaner. DO NOT remove all the filters at the same time, as remembering which goes where is a fiendish test of memory and patience. Why would anyone be tempted to displace all filters, you ask? Well, simply looking does not always indicate which is the troublesome one.

In a nutshell, we have vacuum cleaners to clean our vacuum cleaners. Is it really necessary? All we’re really doing is shifting the dust from one place to another and it will all have to be done again tomorrow . . . or later today.

I keep saying we should employ a cleaner, much as I dislike having other people in the house, to which the stock response is, ‘We can do it ourselves,’ usually followed by, ‘I enjoy housework,’  and, ‘It’s good exercise.’

I think the pleasure and satisfaction of the job may be wearing off, though. Barry has had to do everything in recent weeks, and he has done it all remarkably well. I may just delay my return to certain tasks a little longer. Would that be cruel?

Back to the Roomba – is it a good thing? It certainly makes the house look spruce and it’s useful to have it working while another job can be undertaken. I think that for anyone living in a tidy house, with no pets, it would be wonderful. Having said that, it is nice, to paraphrase Genesis, to look upon one’s floors and find them good.

Living with Inspector Gadget rather skews my thinking on certain things, but, on balance, his instincts are correct. I have had to put my foot down on certain ideas, however. For example, I had no wish to have a mobile holiday home in a double-decker bus, even though he would have made a wonderful job of converting it, just as he did the builder’s van, in which we spent a few happy holidays. A hot air balloon was also a step too far. I didn’t fancy a garden railway, either.

Things He Can Do

Barry has also always been a very active and busy being so being forced to slow down is frustrating in the extreme. It is temporary (we all fervently hope!) while his new knee beds in or whatever it is that total knee replacements do. Meanwhile he cannot do much to help in the house. Some might suggest that nothing has changed there but that would be unkind, untrue, even . . . (insert ‘wink’ emoticon)

However, there have been a number of events which have boosted his sense of self-worth. For instance, he has removed a large spider from the bath, something neither Susannah nor I were able to do and which the cats, usually so dexterous and efficient, could not be persuaded to tackle.

Another accomplishment was the opening of a particularly stubborn bottle followed soon after by the pumping up of bicycle tyres. Add to this the fixing of apps on my computer and programming the remote control (one of them, at least. We have many, many, many remote control devices.) Buoyed up by these achievements Barry then updated the computerisation of the garden watering system. This means that at intervals during the day (and night) various sprinklers and drip-feeds are activated. It can be quite exciting for the cats when they’re caught unawares, and it’s fun for us, cruel as we are, to watch them galloping towards the shelter of the house, their customary grace and elegance and self-assurance momentarily abandoned.

Barry has also been able to traverse the length of the garden to check the water quality in the swimming pool, something I have no idea about. Doubtless I could learn but, like the State of the Art Coffee Machine in the kitchen, I shall not be hastening to acquire the expertise. I like making coffee in a bog standard cafetière. It’s simple and satisfying. The State of the Art Coffee Machine, however, hisses and steams and drips and demands as much attention as a sulky toddler – actually, more, for it requires regular filling and emptying and cleaning. All right, then, it’s just like a toddler. I don’t like coffee – love the smell, can’t stand the taste, so I really don’t want to know how to operate the State of the Art Coffee Machine. I digress.

The final thing on the list of Things He Can Do is to have his Leatherman all-purpose tool ready at all times, for all eventualities. Well, not burst pipes, obviously, or rewiring the house, but minor things like tightening screws, opening boxes, getting stones out of horses’ hooves . . .

He wanted to add to the list ‘research items to contribute to the general clutter’, otherwise known as ‘looking for things you don’t really need but it would be fun to have’,  but he does that all the time anyway, new knees or not.

 

The Leatherman is the grown-up version of the Swiss Army Knife, much loved of Boy Scouts or whatever they’re called these days. Actually, I think it’s an American version of said knife. I have a smaller version, which lives in a small coin case in my bag. 

I find it extremely useful but then, I think I’m becoming Mrs Gadget. My son’s school friends used to refer to Barry as Inspector Gadget. It was only a matter of time, I suppose, before I succumbed to the attraction of gadgets.