The House Guest

We have a house guest.  We don’t usually have house guests’ it’s just Monty, me and Miss Daisy and we are comfortable with that.  It turns out this guest is rather noisy, seems to have a mind of her own and apparently plans to run the place.  We’re not sure how we got into this situation but it all started last week. 

We came home from Colorado dealing with the after vacation blues.  You know the feeling,  when you leave the beautiful snow capped mountains with temps in the 80’s to return to the reality of the Valley. You are trying to remember when you sat outside under the shade of a towering elm reading your favorite novel with a mint julep in the cup holder of your rocking lawn chair.   OK, the mint julep was an exaggeration but not the rest of it. You get the idea, cool and shady are two of my favorite things and that is not July in Arizona.  

We were trying to get acclimated to the change in temperatures (my God is this place even habitable?), while making dozens of trips back and forth between the motorhome and the house.  While taking a break, Monty happened to glance at the internet and discovered it was Amazon Prime day or what might be called tonic for those suffering the after vacation blues.  He was excited to tell me all the stuff that was forty to fifty percent off on this Prime day.  

Did we need anything? For goodness sakes we are past the age of needing anything, but did we want something?  Oh, that’s an entirely different story. We’d been reading about the Roomba vacuum cleaners for quite awhile.  We even looked into getting one a couple of months ago but they are pricey little devils and we couldn’t justify the expense.  But today they’re forty percent off, we can apply the rewards money from our Discover card, and it can be delivered tomorrow.  Now we’re talkin’.  How could we possibly pass up a deal like this?  The blues have lightened a bit.

We waited with great anticipation for the Prime guy to ring the doorbell and deliver our house guest.  Little did we know she intended to take over the house, tossing throw rugs around and bumping into every piece of furniture in the place. 

According to the instruction book the first thing that has to be done is finding a suitable name for your Roomba.  I admit I wasn’t ready for that, I mean are we actually going to call her by name?  I can see naming a car or a boat, but I’ve never called a vacuum cleaner by name.  Well, I’ve called them a lot of names but that’s not the same thing.  

This is a little like having a new puppy.  We told her to sit and stay and she did for a while but when she decided to explore her new digs she just turned on her light, spun around and headed off to look around. 

Once Gertie, yes she answers to Gertie now, gets settled in her corner she waits until no one is looking and like something from the future she spins around and starts mapping the house.  She chugged her way across the carpet in the family room only bumping into the coffee table once, Monty and I picked up our feet and Gertie chased down the dust bunnies under the couch.  I’m liking this so far.  

All of a sudden she turned around, headed back to her box and made some loud noises, apparently emptying the contents of the trash collection.  Monty suggested we put up a privacy curtain if she’s going to do that in the family room.  Once that was done she came back out and started cleaning up the kitchen.  I was in my office working and here came Gertie down the hall.  She peeked in my room but decided that was not next on her agenda so she continued down the hallway heading for the laundry room.

Apparently once she gets the house all mapped out, which of course is displayed on Monty’s smartphone, she will decide which room she wants to clean today and take off to do her job.  

Just like us, every once in a while she gets tired and heads for home to get recharged.  It is actually quite comical, she is cruising down the hall and all of a sudden she spins around and heads back to her box.  The light goes off and Gertie is resting,  after her little nap the light comes on and off she goes on her quest for dust bunnies.  

At first Daisy was jumping up and down so excited to have a new playmate, but when Gertie started moving toward her favorite toy dragon, Daisy was quick to grab her dragon and head for the couch where they’d both be safe. A few good barks should keep this interloper in line.  

As far as house guests go Gertie isn’t too much trouble, in fact I’m going to enjoy having her around.  Let’s face it she doesn’t eat anything and when she isn’t sleeping she’s vacuuming the house. My kind of house guest.