Monday Meanderings - 9.16.2019

Since our kids surreptitiously installed an Echo device in the house last Christmas, Alexia has become like a family pet. We taught her a few tricks and she entertains us from time to time, and she turns a light off and on, but we have come to an impasse over the garage door.

One of the "tricks" I taught her was to remind us each evening to check the garage doors. We used to have a real live neighbor, who would call me on occasion, while walking her dog, to say, "Bob. You forgot to put your garage door down. Again." Unfortunately, she passed away, and now it is up to Freddy from across the street to tell me the door is still up, but he doesn't call - he rings my doorbell late at night and scares the be-jeebers out of me.

So I assigned this task to Alexia, along with other reminders, and she faithfully calls out, "Don't forget to check the garage doors." At first, this scared the be-jeebers out of me as well, but I figured out how to have her speak out softly, and all is well.

If  our home were more technically advanced, Alexia could check the garage doors herself, and probably close them as well, and the reminder would not be needed, but that is not the current state of automation, and so she reminds me every evening. Even if she doesn't need to. Even if I say, "Alexa, the garage doors are down."

Her response to this statement varies. Sometimes she gives me the definition of a garage door. A couple of times she has started playing music from the group named "Three Doors Down." There's always the possibility of her standby "Hmm. I don't know that." But the impasse came about when she started arguing with me. "No! A garage is not a door!"

Barb suggests that I might not want to offend her, or make her mad. She is, after all, on speaking terms with the A/C and the TV. She can turn the lights off. And she might well have other tricks, like ordering a truck load of toilet paper from Mother Amazon.

But she can't close the garage door. Yet.