Thursday, December 26, 2013

 

In the Robotic Program


Being a human person

wasn’t so bad. He loved helter-skelter football on TV.
And even when they printed out a book of rules for him,
and most of the chaos went away, he still wanted to watch it
more than anything else he could do in the cottage.

Mostly, his duties consisted of talking to visitors in their
languages. They were consistently delighted in him, though
some laughed at the grammatical construction or two left
at sea.

That introduced laughter to him, and he responded heartily
at unexpected moments later on.

Such as when Nellie Wye, the housekeeper, asked him to
lift his feet.

She took offense, blurting “They made a man that laughs
at common work! Typical!”

He actually loved Nellie, and was getting wiser as to
what to tell his handlers, who programmed light
responses to her.

They punched in much of what they called PC. “From
hence, G-19, you’ll offend no one!” they trumpeted.

They spent a great deal of time teaching him indirect
discourse, and what they called reading between the lines,
but were often fey and sarcastic themselves in doing it.

In his mind–-let’s call it that–-his name is Zachary Oscar
Midwood, with Nellie his wife. There are several children
and they watch football incessantly, laughing at the
bonehead plays.

And he now stays dead serious whenever Nellie asks him
to lift his feet, having discovered, really, that she has as
many quirks as football has rules.
 

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Comments:
Even the botz have trouble with the missises.
 
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