It’s sort of like a pet, except you feed it electricity and it eats dirt.  It’s clean . . . and it cleans.  It’s an iRobot Roomba, a vacuum cleaning robot.

Roomba (we call her “Roo”) was supposedly a gift for me.  It is true that I hate, hate  to vacuum.  You’d think pushing a 14-pound sweeper across a plain of cheap, low-pile carpet was like plowing rocky turf, digging deep graves, or chopping Sequoias.  I will scrub toilets and floors with merry abandon, but dragging out that sweeper?  Not so much.

Vacuuming is not just an aesthetic endeavor, one to satisfy mothers-in-law and impress neighbors.  It is also a health measure for people (that would be me) who are allergic to dust.  A dusty room will clog up my sinuses like an overturned potato truck clogs traffic on I75.  My face feels like it will explode like a ripe pimple, and my incisors  feel too big for my smile.  Now here’s where my husband comes in: he says  I “breathe heavily”(snore like a freight train) when I sleep.

So although this gift seems perfect for me, and maybe even worth the $500 it cost, my husband is too excited about it to believe he bought it for me. When it arrived, via that personal shopper, amazon.com, my husband hid it — in plain view– in his closet.  The closet I open a half dozen times a day.  I’m a good sport, so I pretended not to see it for the next twelve hours, but as soon as I pulled out our ordinary, primitive vacuum, Rick brought out the Roomba.

Later, while I was at the grocery, I got a text: “Roomba charging.”

When I got home, Rick clapped his hands like a toddler and said (I am not making this up), “Goody!  I waited until you got home to let her vacuum.”  This is when I learned that my vacuum had a gender, and that it thrilled my husband in a way that, heretofore, only a new camera lens or perfectly fried fries could.

He pushed the “Clean” button like he was shooting a gun at the starting gate, and our little round pet began slowly whirring across the carpet.

Roo went where no vacuum had ever gone before:  under tables, chairs, and beds; behind plants, lamps, and couches.

Roo makes those fulfilling tracks in the carpet that say, “I’ve swept here, and very recently.”  But the tracks aren’t parallel lines, like actual vacuums make in the carpet of model homes.  Instead, they go this-a-way and that-a-way like an M.C. Escher sketch.

If she comes upon a pair of underwear or a scale, she pivots in a dismissive or maybe even a disdainful way.  She likes to gnaw on philodendron leaves and fringe.  But Roo is the mechanical equivalent of a puppy, so we are hoping we can train her.

Roo loves small places.  I just watched her twirl incessantly under a chair like a ballerina en pointe.  I watched her for four minutes (in which time I could have vacuumed the whole room with my Hoover) before she found her way out.  I figure these little distractions are like recess to this little beast of burden, and I’ll allow her that.

She is programmable in a way all pet owners wish for.  You can set a timer so she’ll vacuum the whole house at the same time, even if you’re gone.  There are little battery-operated doo-hickies that you can place on the floor that emit a signal to Roo:  “Don’t go here.”  When she’s running out of energy, she will make her way back to the dock where she gets a sip of juice and takes a nap before I wake her up again.

This morning it was George Jetson and Jane, his wife, who got out of our bed.  George read his paper and ate his yogurt.  Jane, his wife, set about cleaning the house by pushing Roo’s “Start” button with her perfectly polished big toe.  While Jane took her shower, Roo did her morning yoga stretches, under the bed, behind the chair, into the closet.  The minute Jane opened the bathroom door, Roo rushed in just like all small children and pets do.

It was mind-bending:  while I showered, Roo was sucking up all those

Rick is vacuuming.

nasty allergens that make me sneeze and honk and bark.  Opening up her little rear door, I found a substantial ball of detritus in the waste compartment.  Now, how’s that for a housebroken pet?

Last night, we had the fright of our lives.  We were watching TV and realized that Roo wasn’t humming anymore.  We rushed to the dock, but she wasn’t there.  We scrambled all over the apartment, looking behind chairs, under tables, in closets, and under throw rugs, but we couldn’t find her.  We were frantic! This was just like the time our kids’ gerbil escaped and chewed into my bowling bag.

Finally, I heard Rick cheer, “I found her!  She’s okay!”  Roo had gotten wedged into a dark corner under a low table, poor thing.

That was a close call!  I thought I might have to go back to pushing a vacuum again, or whining all day until Rick finally did it.

Even though Roo has been a very good girl, I am putting coal in her Christmas stocking.  Lots of little pieces of coal.  She’ll love that.

Here is another post about division of labor in a marriage:  https://www.sandylingo.com/why-women-love-to-be-home-alone/

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