We’ve gone to the dark side.

At first, it was when we broke down and traded in our ancient Motorolas for Apple iPhones.

I VOWED I would never get an iPhone and be one of “those” people.

Uh huh.

Then we got a sound bar for our tv.

I VOWED we would never be one of “those” people who had to have all the gadgets. But then the sound bar was SO CHEAP and pushing that little button on the display bar at Costco made the sound sooooo incredible.

And then Sam’s dream was to have a Sonos system throughout the house because Sam’s world includes music every minute of the day everywhere he happens to be.

So we began saving pennies and collecting little Sonos boxes. In case you are like me and Sonos is a foreign word, it is this conglomeration of technology that allows you to play any kind of music from an amazing little speaker that is connected to other amazing little speakers that you put in every room of your home, and every room can play different music of your choosing, or all the little speakers can play the same music at the same time, and you can control it all from your Apple products such as the iPhone or the iPad.

Uh huh.

We’ve went there. Bad grammar intentional.

 

Sam’s daughter came to visit this weekend and this Sonos project was their father/daughter togetherness. I was perfectly happy to bow out and let them configure the conglomerati. Boy oh boy, did they ever.

Sunday morning, Sam, always the first to awake, walked into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Alexa.”

“Good morning. Did you sleep well? I did, and I had a nice dream that I would like to share with you. I promise it won’t put you back to sleep. If you would like to hear my dream, just ask me to share it with you.”

Wha-a-a-a-a…?

This little black box is now in a relationship with Sam.

They talk. He asks her questions, she answers.  He wants a joke, she delivers.

“Alexa, tell me a joke.”

“A grasshopper walked into a bar and asked the bartender for a drink. The bartender said he would make a drink named after the grasshopper. The grasshopper said, ‘You have a drink named Steve?'”

She knows EVERYTHING. Well, not EVERYTHING. But close. I asked her, “Alexa, what is 57 x 244?”

Without hesitating, she fired back, “57 multiplied by 244 equals 13,908.”

Sam asked her for a bowl of ice cream.

She did not deliver.

At least I still have THAT advantage.

 

There is one word that is forbidden within earshot of Alexa.

Because if Alexa ever meets “Amazon,” I’m done for.

 

 

And with that, I am grateful for simpler times.

I am grateful for memories of record players that played 45’s and 33’s and tvs with three stations and no such thing as a remote control and radios with persnickety antennas and telephones that hung on a wall and had a curly cord and there was no such thing as an answering machine.

But I am also grateful for this wacky, creepy, crazy world. There’s always something innovative and wildly amazing…

*****

NO STINKIN’ JOKE. I just finished this post. Sam is downstairs watching football. I am sitting at my desk. And the bedroom tv just turned on all by itself.