Commentary: Don’t want a pet? How about a robotic vacuum?

For Christmas I bought myself the sort of gift you don’t want to receive from your spouse. A vacuum cleaner.

After Lee died, friends and family suggested I get a cat or a dog. Not having grown up with pets, I didn’t think befriending one would be fair to the pet. I’m known for neglecting house plants.

A single friend asked, “No pets? What do you have to come home to? What reason do you have to get up in the morning?”

I come home to my stuff. I get up to enjoy life.

To stop the get-a-pet lobby, I joked, “I’ll buy one of those robot vacuum cleaners if I’m lonely.” “’Honey, I’m home,’ I’ll say,” and at the sound of my voice, it will greet me at the door.”

This year, I truly began to feel the void. Not the one in my heart, but the one in my home, in my life.

So I ordered the robot vacuum. When it was delivered, I opened the box and slapped it back shut. Parts. It had lots of parts.

I asked my former co-author and good friend Bill if he’d put it together.

If it came with an instruction manual, he said he could probably do it.

While he was deep in the manual, I began to unload the box.

The big round robot itself. The charging base and an electrical connection. Two replacement filters. Three screws and a screwdriver. An extra revolving brush. A comb. Two four-pointed walrus mustaches. Six rubber bumper strips the size and shape of emery boards. And a flying-saucer-looking thingy.

I looked at the quick-start card and figured out only one whiskered attachment was necessary, requiring only one of the screws enclosed.

When I began screwing it in, Bill said, “Liz, I thought you wanted me to do it.”

Well, of course I did when I asked him, but it had begun to look like fun.

Instead of elbowing into the project, I put our lunch dishes into the dishwasher while Bill continued reading the manual.

“It looks like that whisk does go where you were trying to put it,” Bill said.

I decided I was back on the team and plugged the cord into the charging station, and the charger into the wall beneath one of the kitchen chairs.

“It needs 10 clear feet in front of it, the quick-start card says,” I said. “Do you think that’s 10 feet?”

“Yes, about that,” Bill said.

When we introduced the two metal plates of the robot onto the two sticky-outy things on the charging base, the robot lit up like the news ticker in Times Square, colored lights flickering and dashes racing across the display.

I began to examine the flying-saucer.

“It’s a remote control!” I said. “I thought these things got programmed and ran themselves.”

“Batteries not included,” Bill said.

I went to the refrigerator and pulled out two double-As.

“It takes triple-As.” Bill said.

“Well, rats. I can’t find the triple-As. I just bought some for the gizmo that adjusts my bed.”

Bummer! We couldn’t try out the robot.

Bill was ready to head home.

Soon I remembered I’d put the triple-A batteries next to my bed, where I’d need them. I inserted two into the remote and pushed go.

The robot sounded like a leaf-blower.

Not quite 10 feet later, it ran into a chair and by making many 20-degree turns it proceeded to explore my kitchen.

I laughed so hard I snorted. I’m surprised no one has posted a video on Facebook.

Bill called, asking how the robot worked.

“Well, so far it needs to be told when to turn right and left, but it does pick up stuff in its path,” I said. “I didn’t find a way to program it. Maybe once it knows its way around, it’ll program itself.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s working,” he said. “We’re a good team.”

“I named it ‘Putchie-tookums,’” I said, “and I need to put those bumper strips on him.”

I haven’t figured out how to get it to meet me at the door, but I envision returning home and calling out, “Putchie-tookums, I’m home!”

Vroom.

Author LIZ SWIERTZ NEWMAN lives in Corona del Mar.