Editor’s Note: Interested in free weekly updates from Northern Michigan? Sign up for the WEEKLY PINE VIEW
By Joel Vernier
I was enjoying a well-deserved nap in my “Comfy Chair.” I woke up sweating as I realized my wife was out of town visiting her sister, and my nose was detecting a slight olfactory cue that could only mean one thing! I had not cleaned up the kitchen or washed the dishes. Adulting has many challenges; it makes me wonder why I just couldn’t wait to grow up and become an adult. Yes, “Adulting Horrors” include working, earning a living, paying bills, worrying about the kids growing up, is all a part of adulting, but the real scare is the daily question: “What’s for dinner?” and “Whose turn is it to do the dishes!” I imagine the sound of shrill, screeching violins that accompany scary scenes in a Hollywood horror film. Keeping up with house chores is like cutting grass, shoveling snow, raking leaves, vacuuming the floors, doing the laundry, but planning dinner and doing the dishes are the scariest of them all!
Modern living has many conveniences, but I must admit that as a kid, I loved watching the “Jetsons” on television. So many of the technology features on that show have become reality today, and in fact, some are even better than the show portrayed. Video meetings, flying cars, automated showers, teeth cleaning, and clothing assistance are awesome. I particularly enjoyed the “Jetsons” housekeeper, “Rosie the Robot,” a domestic robot. Elon Musk plans to sell them in 2027; China may sell them sooner. A “Rosie” type of robot is in the near future. Imagine doing dishes or cooking would be handled by your personal robotic machine. There are little helpers on the market already; robotic vacuum cleaners, robotic lawnmowers, and companion robots, whatever that means. Futurists say a human-like robot capable of doing all domestic chores may be common as soon as 2030. Is this important? The average person prepares over 50,000 meals in a lifetime, the equivalent of eating 35 tons of food in a lifetime! I’m feeling full just thinking about that. We spend over 700 days of our lives just doing dishes! Is it time to use paper plates, plastic cups, and silverware? I think not, I like eating off of a real plate with silverware, and a glass of water.
We have large dogs, and they generate about 274 pounds a year that need to be picked up. Horse lovers, each horse may generate one ton of manure a year, and if they are stall kept, add the sawdust to that. With daily barn chores, you may not need your gym membership. Not to forget putting up the hay bales for the season! Hoping they have modules you can add to your robot’s skills, like: barn chores, gardening, lawn maintenance, snow removal, house painting, plumbing & heating, stock market investing, and shopping. Leaving the average human to focus on retirement, reading, watching TV, eating, vacations, physical fitness, the list is endless! I abruptly woke up to the loud sound of the vacuum in the next room, and I realized I had dreamed I needed to do the dishes and that my wife was away. As I was about to extend my nap, my wife yelled, “Joel, you promised to do the dishes today!” “Okay,” I remembered that I negotiated doing the dishes every other day in return for my new subscription to a streaming service. Not my best negotiation!
“Remember, every day is a gift! Some are just a little more fun to open than others.
