Robovac

A story that sucks? From That’s Life! (as we know it)

Robovac

Honestly, I had absolutely no idea how dirty my house was before I purchased a robotic vacuum cleaner. That isn't what this story is about, but I thought this deserved full disclosure. In self defense I would guess that most people share such ignorance since the interior of a regular vacuum bag is not generally subject to close examination. Maybe if you own one of those tube types, with a transparent body you know what I've seen.

But here's a thing. Unless you get one of those really high tech robots that self-empties, you have to remove the dust bin and dump it pretty frequently. Well, well. I was so amazed at the quantity of detritus at first that I began to empty it into a waste basket in my bathroom and just let it build up, to get a longer sample so to speak. How long would it take to fill the thing?

Before long I began to have tiny fleas¹ jumping on me when I was—hmm, want to be delicate here—oh, I've got it—seated.

After about a week I realized that my unit was picking up flea eggs and they were hatching in the trash, a problem easily solved, but also reassuring. This Eufy®² really sucks!

Some of the denizens of the old cat ranch were afraid of it, one ignored it, but calico Clare [RIP] was the queen. When the robot was scooting around, bouncing off the walls and furniture, she would sit mid floor and let it carom off her, sometimes taking a swipe with her paw.

This reminds me of something clever I read yesterday.

Cat: Has claws at the end of its paws.

Comma: Has pause at the end of its clause.

Okay, so I'm easily amused. In any event for the purposes of this excursion I'm going to loan Clare and the Eufy® to Olivia Turnbull who we met on page 36 [of the print edition], shin-deep in warm mud. We recall that by the end of that gripping story we knew her well enough to label her with the hypocoristic, “Liv,” and when we last mentioned her she was getting naked with an unnamed companion.³

Now she has a cat [Clare for those of you with short memories] and a vacuum, and, let's see, oh, right, a significant other! [The previous hot'n'steamy preceded cohabitation by a few months.]

So now Liv and Addissae have a cat, a vac, etc.

Addissae is also a post-doc at the university, though she is in the physics department, not the chem lab. She came here by way of Happy Appy.⁴

The first thing you'd probably notice about Adsie is her height, and you wouldn't be surprised to learn that she went to Appy on a basketball scholarship. It was during hours and hours and hours of shooting baskets in high school that she began to think in terms of infinitesimals regarding the arc of thrown rubber objects, obviously leading to planets, gravity and the space-time continuum.

You'd probably also notice her red hair, though these days hair color, particularly among the young, is variable. I mean, she had red hair when I last saw her but it could well be turquoise or lime green today. Let me check.

...

OMG! She shaved her head! Her noggin is somewhat earth-shaped—an oblate spheroid turned on its side. Nose: Everest.

Correction: Liv shaved Adsie's head.

It was just the Saturday before last that Adsie said, “Sugarpie, I think I want to shave my head.”

**Her partner's initial reaction was “!” accompanied by an eye-roll. “You sure?”

“Ever since I read footnote #121 I've been thinking about doing it. It made me curious.”

“Whatever. I guess you can always grow it back.”

“Will you still love me?”

“Stupid question dear one. I think you'd better let me help though. I don't want to see you all cut up.”

So Liv went at it. First with scissors, collecting the long lime green locks and setting them aside, then snapping some pics of the crewcut with her cell.

Next she tucked a towel around her lover's neck and soaped her head with Dr. Bronner's®.

“Oh that feels good!” Which encouraged the barber half of the duo to prolong the soaping as sort of a cranial massage.

Next the razor, handled with care. The whole operation took the better part of an hour, ending with Adsie jumping into the shower to rinse off soap and residual fur.

She called out, “You wouldn't believe how this feels! The spray on my head! Incredible!”

Over the course of last week Adsie kept up with the exclamations. “The breeze! The sun on my scalp! The heat from overhead lighting! The pillow! My hat!” Then, “Liv, I'm really feeling my head for the first time! Really, really!”

Well, it didn't take long. Just one week. Last Saturday Liv announced, “My turn.” [Rather than waste valuable pixels I'll let you return to the ** on page 162 and switch names.]

So we have two oblate spheroids making one think of the well known two-body problem in classical mechanics in which it is assumed that the pair only interact with one another, that the only force acting on the one comes from the other and that all other bodies are ignored.

Of course that's the theory, and for the most part that's true of our pair of lovers, though the naked head thing might be pushing some sort of limit. You see, others often want to touch a newly bald head previously hidden below lime green, red, turquoise, brown, blond, auburn, brunette or black hair. [This is not dissimilar to what is often reported by Black people regarding the touching of kinky hair by whites. Generally children.]

Yesterday, the first time Liv arrived at the lab bald, Oscar ran his hand over her head. “Nice,” he observed. “Very nice.”

“Watch it Bosco⁵!”

“Couldn't help myself. You're practically an oblate spheroid now! And a shiny one at that!”

“Thanks, but remember it's for looking, not touching.”

“OK, I get it.” He slouched off to his lab table.

Adsie on the other hand had a somewhat different experience in the physics department. There it was Phyllis who took liberties. She first commented, “New look baby!” Then asked, “Can I touch?”

General Rule #13: “Ask first.”

“Sure. I'm getting a kick out of experiencing the nerves in my scalp in new and interesting ways.” She tilted her head since Phyllis is almost a foot shorter than our former ball player.

Her fellow post-doc delicately stroked the proffered surface, her long nails very slightly dragging on the naked skin.

“Damn girl, that is sexy as hell. You're sending shivers all the way to my distal digits.” She bent further. “Don't stop!”

Phyllis continued the gentle strokes then leaned in and kissed the crown with just a hint of tongue.

“Yikes!”

What was happening reminds us of the two-body problem in general relativity, where the one with the larger mass attracts the one with the smaller in ways that can't be precisely calculated.

If Adsie were to act on her immediate impulse, reacting to this frankly sexualized interaction, she might well invite Phyllis over to play, likely creating a three-body problem⁶, assuming Liv is open to the idea. [There is no closed-form solution for such a situation because the resulting dynamical system is chaotic for most initial conditions. With a Ph.D. in higher math and theoretical physics Addissae Turner is well aware of the potential for chaos and resolved to talk it over with her amour first.]

That evening, waiting for Liv to come home she was watching the Eufy® carom around the room and found herself wondering about the vacuum's software, trying to figure out if its actions were random or programmed and “What if there were two?” Three?

Clare was sitting atop the thing, evidently enjoying the ride.

When Liv arrived and after an embrace and a kiss Adsie said, “Phyllis asked to touch my head today.”

“Bosco didn't ask, he just went for it. The jerk.”

“I let her. It was pretty amazing. Let me show you.”

“Okay. Sure.”

The physicist duplicated the action described at the top of this page and her partner had a similar reaction. In short order one thing led to another.⁷

Later, fixing supper, Adsie came up behind Liv and stroked her noggin again.

“Mmmm. Anytime, sugar.”

“Honey, can you imagine what that would feel like with four hands?”

“You mean mine?”

“Not exactly.”

*****

NOTE PER FOOTNOTES: Substack starts off with new numbering each time I post a story. But Footnotes in the original book are continuous and often refer back to previous super important stuff. So original Footnote #s are included below in [#]s.

1 [329] How indoor cats get fleas is a numinous mystery.

2 [330] We last met a Eufy® in “Magic Carpet Ride,” Fifty wheys to love your liver, BUB, 2018 [Wow. I've had mine for almost 5 years!]

3 [331] Hot'n'steamy for darn sure. Recall they were showering together on page 37.

4 [332] Appalachian State University® up in Boone, N. Car.

5 [333] His work nickname. She's a little sharp with him because he's inclined to hit on her despite knowing her gender orientation.

6 [334] In classical mechanics.

7 [335] You got it. Hot'n'steamy.