A few months ago, I split up with my wife Sharon and to fill the hole in my heart I purchased 25 Roombas. They’re way more fun than Sharon ever was. Lately instead of reading or taking my dog for a walk, I just dump out a bag of Hot Cheetos on my carpet and watch my army of Roombas suck everything up.
The other night I was watching my Roombas suck up some Spicy Chex Mix from my bedroom carpet when I noticed one of them missing.
“Hello?” I called out. “Number 8? Where are you?”
At first I was worried Number 8 might be broken, but when I walked into the living room, I saw that Number 8 was very much not broken. He was thrusting himself in and out of my silver colored geode, that one with the sparkly middle that smells faintly of chalk.
“No, no, stop!” I yelled, but they did not stop. Number 8 kept boning away and the geode kept rolling toward his boning and Number 8 kept on making this sensual whirring sound that sounded like really sexy white noise.
I hurt my hand pretty badly pulling them apart, but I finally got them separated. I immediately logged onto the Roomba chat room to see if anyone had an explanation for his behavior.
“Try rewiring him,” one commenter said.
“Live and let live,” another commenter said.
I decided to rewire him. And for about a week everything was great. But then last week I had some friends over to play this game that I’d invented which was a combination of Apples to Apples and Scattergories that I sometimes called Applegories, but also sometimes called ScatApples. At some point I went to check on some puff pastries in the oven and I heard everyone start laughing. When I got back out to the living room I saw why. Ol’ Robot Caligula Junior was sticking himself into Ol’ Sparkly Basaltic Lava again! For the rest of the night, no one wanted to play ScatAppleGories, they all just wanted to sit on my couch and get high and watch those two screw.
When the party was winding down my friend Adrian suggested that I set the geode up on a counter to keep it away from the Roomba.
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
But then after I’d fallen asleep, I heard an ungodly noise coming from my kitchen and I walked in there to find my Roomba up on the counter, having what probably looked like anal sex with my toaster oven while maybe also getting teabagged by the geode?
Listen, I want to be cool about this because I know more than most that you cannot choose who you love. Still, it bothers me that all my appliances might be in cahoots with each other now, having some fun machine orgy after I go to bed or perhaps plotting to murder me. I really hate that I have to hope for a machine orgy.
Recently I started leaving out a shitload of Pepperoni Pizza Flavored Corn Nuts on my living room carpet for Number 8 to accidentally choke on, but unfortunately he’s still going strong. Right now I’m in my bed and he and the geode are in the other room, pounding and buzzing away. In the end, I realize that I’m probably just going to have to just accept this situation. I’ve already decided that I’m going to buy a pair of noise cancelling headphones and maybe tomorrow when I get home from work Number 8 and I will have a little chat to figure out a sex signal, like hanging a necktie on the doorknob or something, so I don’t walk in on him when he’s getting busy.
Today marks day two of Fall Fiction week at the McSweeney’s store. We’re featuring a new fiction title every day—at a steep discount. Today’s seasonal delight is Alessandro Baricco’s Emmaus