Those that are concerned about robots taking over the world and subjecting us human types to lives of servitude to their robot needs, wants, and whims, obviously do not have an iRobot Roomba in their household.

Our son gave us a Roomba for Christmas last year, a labor-saving gift of the sort that one seemingly gives to parents who are seemingly deemed “aging” and thusly in need of labor saving. I took no offense. If you are offended by aging, you have a long uphill climb downhill.

The Roomba, like everything else nowadays, comes with an app. Not an ape. An ape would be useful. Cleaning gutters, grooming the dog, filling birdfeeders, peeling pesky bananas, breaking in cowboy hats…an app can’t do any of those useful things, but it can make you feel like an ape. An ape in a cage that you willingly bought and built yourself into. So it goes.

The Roomba app, the one that can’t break in cowboy hats or groom the dog, requires you to name your Roomba, so after a bit of thoughtful deliberation, I named ours Alice. Alice did such a bang-up job keeping the Brady Bunch household ship shape, I thought I’d see if her robot cousin (twice removed) was cut from a similar cloth. They are not, and 9 out of 10 Sam The Butchers prefer Alice Nelson to Alice Roomba. There always has to be at least one weirdo in every bunch.

Alice Roomba and her hoard of robots are not going to take over the world any time soon. A well-placed garden-variety kitchen chair will occupy their time long enough for you to make a sandwich (tuna on sourdough with gouda cheese…toasted) and do a load of laundry (extra spin cycle) before the superior artificial intelligence is able to free itself from that four-legged labyrinth and hunt you down.

Be advised, if you happen to be an active or retired milker of cows, and only possess and squat upon three-legged stools, I am not able to confidently deduce and declare the level of threat Alice Roomba imposes upon you and your herd.

Alternatively, if you are fresh out of chairs, a well-placed sweat sock or a shoe with dangling shoelaces will suffice in halting the menacing overthrow of your human world by Alice Roomba. In a pinch you can always just sit on the couch and lift your feet up. The same way you did when your mom was rudely interrupting the two-hours of kids programming television stations offered per week.

I say… I say…Now you’ll never know what pearl of wisdom Foghorn Leghorn imparted upon Henery the Chicken Hawk.

Fellow human types, we shall overcome the tyranny of robots and apps, and age and rage against the forces of labor-saving devices bent on making our hands and minds soft. Aging, laboring for life, love, and the pursuit of happiness, are privileges, rights, and responsibilities that some choose not to shoulder and some, by no choice of their own, are not granted.

Alice Roomba, I know what you are up to, and you are not going to get away with it.