My Pet Vaccuum Cleaner

My dad got me a Roomba for Christmas.

For those of you who have never heard of Roomba, it is essentially a short, circular vaccuum cleaner made by iRobot that uses advanced technology to find its way around a room, cleaning the carpet (or other flooring) along its way.

After doing a bit of research, I find it amazing how this machine is starting to pick up. People are naming these machines. They treat them as pets, even. Some people argue that they have personalities. A co-worker of my father's mentioned that one day his wife was in the shower when she heard their Roomba knocking at the door - it then deposited a condom it had found in her son's room in front of her. I can't imagine that conversation.

I don't find it hard to believe, though. The first time I encountered one of these, I spent quite a long time watching it. They are mesmerizing. They almost appear to be thinking. I would argue that ours is feisty, even. It's determined to climb over the flat part of this Ikea chair. It typically gets about halfway (after a minute or so of struggling), and then gets stuck, and eventually lets out a warning beep which sounds interestingly enough like a small child that's just spilled something and says, "Uh, oh." It also likes to chase our cat. I think this is partially because the cat likes to stand in its way but the first time we ran it through the cycle the cat seemed to spend a good 20 minutes running away from it. She eventually figured out that it can't climb things and settled for a chair.

Aside from the odd problem with our Ikea chair, our Roomba is basically the most amazing piece of electronics to have ever entered our apartment. We turn it on and spend half the cycle watching it. We laugh at it because it will hit something hard, back away, and then apprehensively approach it a second time. It gets under the couch and chairs, and between all the pieces of our dining room set. After it's done in the living room, it swings by the kitchen, getting every corner. I'm particularly looking forward to trying it out in my bedroom; I'm mildly terrified of spiders and so cleaning underneath the bed is something I've never been a fan of. Now I can send our little pet robot to scare all the spiders away and suck up the dust bunnies! (right now, people can barely walk through my room, let alone robots, so certainly the area has to be somewhat clear to vaccuum with Roomba - no different than if you wanted to use a regular vaccuum, really).

I've heard a few complaints that the suction isn't as good as a regular vaccuum but, while this is true, unless you have some major vaccuuming to do (read: you spilled more than what can reasonable fit into a Roomba), I don't think it will be an issue. We are messy, we have a cat that likes to rub herself all over everything. And our floor looks better than ever. Mostly because vaccuuming has become a pleasure, instead of a chore. And I don't see this changing anytime soon.