Robots & Genies, Eau de Water Buffalo and Worrying With Extreme Prejudice

Welcome to my latest publication of Domestic Chaos Theory…

Robots & Genies. My wife read somewhere that AI is like having a personal assistant. And thought to herself I’d sure like a personal assistant. So, she went to her current personal assistant (me) and asked about AI. Will it make the bed for me? Nope. You’re thinking of a robot. They’re not available yet. Will it make me rich? Nope. You’re thinking of a genie. I don’t believe they actually exist. So, what can it do? Well, among other things it can alter the photos that you take for Facebook so that you ALWAYS look good. She’s now decided she really likes where this whole AI thing is heading.

Eau de Water Buffalo. You know how some kids get into high school and decide their passion in life is to become a doctor? Me neither. Because my youngest son prepared himself, literally 24/7, for the NBA instead. On the one hand, I enjoyed watching him play hoops. But picking him up at the gym? Not so much. Because he was always soaked in sweat. When you open the door of my car, it smelled like you were breaking open an ancient time capsule stuffed with old man sweat socks. The detailing guy at the car wash described it as Eau de Water Buffalo. He suggested I drive the car off a cliff for the insurance money. I found a hazmat guy instead. He didn’t think the smell was so bad. Thought we could blend it with something. But then, he specializes in cleaning up homicides.

Worrying With Extreme Prejudice. I’m not 100% sure about this, but sometimes I think my wife may actually enjoy worrying. She sure is good at it. How else would you explain the graph below?

MY FAMILY’S POV

I’m pretty sure that I’ve already mentioned that my wife really doesn’t like reading. She especially doesn’t like reading graphs. She already gets a little bit annoyed when I make fun of the fact that she is an expert worrier. She gets more annoyed when I make it more complicated with a graph. Having said all that, she does not dispute the graph’s conclusion.

With regard to genies, my wife is all in. In fact, early on in our marriage I’m pretty sure she was trying to turn me into some kind of genie by constantly making outrageously difficult requests (e.g., you know how to install granite countertops, right?). Since we were newly married (so I really didn’t yet understand how marriage works) I made a good faith effort to at least try to handle these requests. I feel like falling short at that stage, while painful, probably set the correct standard of achievement for the rest of the marriage. I’m clearly no genie.

With regard to my stinky car, I’m proud to say that we eventually passed that car along to my son as a college graduation gift. It still smells like a locker room. Even more so when it rains. Now, that’s karma for you.

FINAL THOUGHTS

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