Black Ruby

A little history:

We have a Roomba Red, a robotic vacuum that is red. Or rather we have a formerly-robotic and rather inert piece of red plastic that is indeed referred to as Ruby Dumbo.

The name came about in something of a bidding war for names between myself and the older mermaid when she was not so ‘older’. Neither bid won outright and so the aforementioned, aforeworking, aforerobotic vacuum was named.

Along came another mermaid who, incidentally, has never known a day without robots [ok that is just weird]. Despite this life-long familiarity, she hasn’t lost the innate sensibility to be distrustful of the little thing that moves on it’s own and lacks a certain mammalian nurturing tendency. In fact, only recently has the wee mermaid been able to stay perched on the couch by herself while Ruby Dumbo doth clean. And she hath cleaned very well I might add.
>>|  Fast forward to current day.

Ruby Dumbo is now aforementioned and the service her little red exoskeleton so dutifully provided is sorely missed. So The Daddy jumped at the chance to introduce more time-sapping technology into a 21st century house…all in the name of time savings. Another story might be the historical view [in 50+ years] of all the time burned up with ‘time-saving’ technology. Another story I say, because this is not one of them.

Enter Black Ruby Dumbo, Black Ruby for short.

She isn’t mean, she’s just black and she does some things above and beyond Ruby Dumbo (besides vacuuming). She can self-dock (going to bed), adjust her height for floor conditions, not get tangled in tassles or cords, bring me coffee in the morning with cream and sugar, and project-manage the washer and dryer. But beyond all that, the most impactful thing for The Mermaids is that she talks.

I had only just opened her box (literally only opened the top) and Emma bolted for the couch with intent. She looked on in eerie fascination from a safe distance, asking whether she talked up until we woke her up. And talk she did. Black Ruby gave a little demo of the things she can do and then the lines were smudged to a smoky shade of gray as Emma began [still from the couch mind you] to have a conversation with Black Ruby.

Black Ruby…I have…look…at my…blue…toe..nails…Black Ruby.

Not much later, and with only a little hesitation she petted Black Ruby on her…shell [?]. It seems Black Ruby is part of the family now with all due respect to her predecessor Ruby Dumbo, may she rest in one piece.