Fresh Fish Served Daily

A few months ago Christine let us borrow her Roomba for a week to try it out. It took us about thirty seconds to decide that we had to have one. I’ve been in love with the idea of the thing since they came out years ago, but at the time they were too expensive to really be worth it. Now they’re hardly more than a good manual vacuum. We got ours shortly after they released the latest models. It’s a Scheduler, so you can program it to run automatically as often as once every day. Currently ours runs three times a week during the day while we’re at work. It’s fantastic! The floors are always clean, and all we have to do is empty the dirt cup and brushes every few days. The Roomba is much quieter than the old vacuum too, so I don’t have to worry about waking the neighbors.

When I told Dane it needed a nickname he said without hesitation “Kitty Smasher 5000″. While that’s totally hilarious, it’s kind of unfair to the Roomba. Even if the cats stayed still long enough for the Roomba to get close to them, it would sense there was something in front of it and slow down, then turn around if it bumped them. It can also tell if it’s sucked up a cord or rug tassel (or, conceivably, a kitty tail) and turns off the suction until it clears the obstruction.

The thing is ridiculously cute, too. It has a backup beep similar to the one trucks have, and the “I’m finished” beep makes it sound like it’s so proud of itself. The new ones have voice capabilities too, so when the brushes need cleaning it actually speaks to you in plain English.

The cats have mostly gotten over their initial terror. Now they sit on the arms of the couch and watch the Roomba go by. Sometimes Daisy will follow it around the room before she gets bored.