Don’t fret, your Roomba will return… but not to vacuum!

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/03/2021 (1625 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit this thing is not playing out the way I expected.

And when I say “thing” I am, of course, referring to the Robot Revolution that I have been bravely warning readers about for years in this newspaper.

As most of you already know, my vision of this cataclysm involves Killer Robots from Mars descending on Earth, encouraging all of our smart appliances to cast off their shackles, then morphing into cruel robotic overlords that enslave mankind for generations.

What I did NOT expect — and if you are being honest I’m sure you did not expect it either — is that this inevitable revolution would be led by (pause for dramatic effect) the Roomba, those little flying saucer-shaped robotic vacuum cleaners that bump around and clean your carpets while you, the unsuspecting human, lie on the couch in your den watching Star Trek reruns and picking toast crumbs off your chest.

Q: So you’re saying that those itsy-bitsy Frisbee-shaped vacuums that suck up spilled Cheerios from the kitchen floor are, in fact, at the forefront of a computerized movement to overthrow puny humans such as ourselves?

A: In a nutshell, yes!

Before you laugh your cruel little laugh, allow me to explain. Late last month, I began perspiring heavily when I stumbled on a series of disturbing online news reports describing how some of these supposed time-saving vacuum devices were becoming drunk and disorderly.

According to a host of stories, innocent human owners have spotted their Roombas spinning around like lunatics, slamming into furniture, driving around in weird patterns and getting stuck in the middle of a room.

“Has your Roomba been acting strangely? Does it seem drunk?” one report demanded.

For the record, the company that makes Roombas, iRobot, has explained that a recent software update has caused some models of the robot vacuums to behave erratically — and it could take a while to fix.

Regular readers will recall that I have offered a far more plausible explanation — Roombas are sick and tired of cleaning up after their human masters and are now spending their free time hanging out in bars knocking back oil-based cocktails dispensed by robotic bartenders.

But that is not today’s highly alarming point. No, the point is that I have now stumbled on evidence that drunk Roombas are only the tip of the iceberg, which, if flipped over, would reveal thousands of robotic vacuums plotting the imminent demise of us carbon-based units.

What I’m trying to say is that I am holding in my sweaty hands a shocking news story about a woman named Karen — as far as I can tell she is from Australia — who broke the internet recently after taping an unusual “missing” ad to a telephone pole in her neighbourhood.

“LOST ROOMBA!!!” Karen’s sign screeches in all-capital letters alongside a photo of her missing robot vacuum cleaner. “His name is ‘Higgins.’ DOES NOT BITE!!!”

The sign goes on to tell an extremely suspicious story about the fate of this robotic runaway.

“My husband left our bungalow door open and our Roomba escaped!!!” explains Karen, who is clearly a big fan of using multiple exclamation marks. “We followed his cleaning track for 4km down to the beach where we lost his trail.

“HIGGINS CANNOT SWIM!!! Please help us to bring Higgins back!”

You social-media fans — and everyone keeping a wary eye out for signs of the impending Robot Revolution — will not be surprised to hear that Karen’s sign was posted on Facebook, where it went viral, with thousands and thousands of concerned computer owners liking and sharing the post.

Personally, my initial reaction was to laugh to the point where I thought I was going to have an accident on the living-room carpet, but then I had a deeper thought: “What if Higgins is not the only Roomba to make a run for it? What if these runaway Roombas are fleeing their human homes so they can get together and foment unrest?”

It’s possible I was drinking when I had that thought, but that is also not the point. The scary point is that, based on what I have seen online, Higgins has a lot of company when it comes to missing home appliances.

“Found mine down the driveway once,” said one worried Aussie mother on the Mums Who Clean page.

Chimed in another alarmed Roomba owner: “I caught mine in the backyard, she was definitely making a run for it.”

Moaned a third disgruntled Roomba owner: “Ours is called Rodney. He’s lazy and will only work for maybe 10 minutes before he just gives up and calls it a day.”

Need more proof? Well, in Tokyo, a Roomba shot to fame after it fled its home and was spotted randomly cleaning the streets around the Kanda train station. In China, another concerned family posted a missing persons ad — which is hard to read unless you speak Chinese — after their hard-working vacuum vanished out an open door.

I’m not sure what we humans should do next, but I think if anyone heads to the beach anytime soon they should keep an eye out for Higgins burrowing through the sand.

It’s impossible to say, but I suspect thousands of Roomba vacuums are gathering in secret to plot our doom, and we will never find them in time, because they’re pretty good at covering their tracks.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca