The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

For Christmas, my brother-in-law gave his wife a ring. I haven’t seen it, but hear it’s platinum with the centerpiece a heart-shaped ruby flanked by little diamonds. On the band is engraved the date of their marriage. The gift wasn’t in a stocking hanging from the mantle. No, he took her on a tour of Europe and made a champagne presentation on Christmas Eve while in a suite overlooking the Arch de Triomphe.

In a not-quite-as-romantic setting, I gave mine a robotic vacuum cleaner. Both wives are happy. Mine, in fact, said this might be her most memorable gift since that Christmas morning 20 years ago when she arose to find under the tree a five-horse rototiller.

Part of the reason for the robo-vac is our dog, a Bichon. Breed descriptions say a Bichon does not shed. They do, however, have hair that falls out. Ads for the vac said it was good at dealing with this. Anxious to put it to the test, I charged the battery in advance. When wife opened her package the bot was ready to go, and I put him on an area rug that had a few white fuzz-balls. The robot came to life and the dog attacked. I handed wife the remote and picked up the dog. It was a mistake to turn the thing on before reading the owner’s manual. With dog yapping and squirming, I watched bot leave the rug and advance toward a wall. There is a window in that wall; a window with curtains that hang to the floor. As the machine started consuming curtains, wife tried to turn it off. I’d turned it on with the “auto” button. The “auto” button does not shut it off. Wife hit the “B” button, which I learned later is the power booster. This drains the battery more quickly, but provides extra strength for heavy jobs. I put the dog down and made a move too late. Bot climbed a couple of inches up the curtain before roller/beaters plugged and the curtain assembly came clattering down.

Although this was not a good beginning, there was no serious damage. The falling curtain gave the dog respect, and I spent some time reading instructions. The second try went much better. This thing actually works. Our sous vide was used twice and never again. An air fryer isn’t all that great, and she’s forgotten where the instant pot is. Her pickle picker went the way of her microwave egg poacher, salad shooter and the George Foreman all-purpose grill and waffle maker.

The robo-vac, though, has found a home. I haven’t watched television since Christmas and the floor is spotless. I sit in the recliner watching him work a route he chooses. Often, though, I opt to control his direction of travel. One button causes him to clean the perimeter. Push it and he follows the baseboard. Another tells him to go in circles. I used this after dumping half a box of corn flakes on the floor just to see if he could do it. Directional arrows allow me to send him to that annoying crumb under the kitchen table. I push an arrow button until he pivots toward the bedroom, there to venture into a previously unexplored cavern under the queen-size. If he gets stuck he calls for help, and when his battery runs low he returns to the docking station, climbs on and plugs himself in.

A remote-controlled model car is great fun, but doesn’t serve much of a practical purpose. Robots do, and I expect this one is the look of the future. That isn’t all good. Each time the minimum wage increases, so does the likelihood of robots replacing people. Many of us joined the workforce as child labor in jobs that paid very little. We learned, though, about work ethic and reliability and incentive and advanced because of it.

A study released last year by the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) found that youth in the workforce are particularly vulnerable to being replaced entirely by machines. Summer job options grow fewer. How far this will go is unknown, but without question the use of robots is on the rise and they’ll replace a great many people in the workforce. If OECD is right, most of those who lose opportunities are youth.

There’s little I can do about that. What I can do is watch Mr. Tidy work like a trooper and never whine about a raise or call in sick when he isn’t. I can also imagine the look on my brother-in-law’s face when I tell him the cost of two nights in that Paris suite would have put a robo-vac in every room of their house.

The rototiller, by the way, still runs as smooth as it did on day one. And I’ve ordered a second remote because the robo-vac is, after all, hers.

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.