Appliances are spying on us
Are your household appliances spying on you?
The robotic vacuum whirled around to face us, and then encircled menacingly, or at least the dog thought so. Whenever the machine would roll towards her, Tig’ger, the Australian Shepherd, would tuck her stubby tail and run out of the room.
After all, it did make strange, loud, humming sounds, like some kind of alien animal.
To make things even spookier, the rolling, whirling, dirt-eating disc had later somehow knocked the wicker basket laundry lid on top of itself, and now was incognito. I grabbed my cellphone and recorded the strange phenomenon.
It spun round and round in tight circles, akin to a buffalo with a brain injury after rutting season. The lid had obstructed Robovac’s vision, then becoming disorientated, it was dazed and confused.
I must admit, the thing gives me the willies too, especially when we first got the self-propelled vacuum. Couldn’t help but wonder if there isn’t a camera inside, hidden in plain sight.
In this day and age, one has to be concerned about our smart phones, TVs and even our own vehicles recording our every move and conversation; along with home surveillance systems and baby monitors being hacked into by nefarious individuals.
Case in point, I was alone and using my nine-year-old laptop late one afternoon and I happened to say out loud that I didn’t understand why I was so tired. Seconds later an ad came up on the screen about chronic fatigue syndrome. Now that was freaky. The camera had been taped over, but how do you shut off the sound?
Hence the notion of a roaming vacuum saucer spy, sneaky enough to cover itself in camouflage, may not be that far-fetched after all. Perhaps it thought it would blend in better with the surroundings of the hardwood floor and tanned carpet, believing it fooled this inferior human.
The appliance is more compact, a flattened version of Artoo Deetoo (the glorified shop vac) and quite possibly, far more sinister as well.
They say to trust your dog’s instincts about things. I don’t know who “they” are, but that’s good advice.
My dogs over the decades have warned me correctly about sketchy people, whom I initially had been fooled by, but the previous pooches never encountered a robovac either, and some canines actually attack them.
Good thing Tig’ger’s a pacifist. Doreen Zyderveld-Hagel Kelowna