I’m going to need you to believe me when I tell you I didn’t buy that Alexa to make Willie crazy. It’s just been an unexpected perk.
I set up an Alexa for Willie and Indy. It seemed ingenious at the time. They’re constantly forgetting appointments. And grocery lists! I thought Alexa could help with grocery lists! Willie has a complex system for her grocery list. It’s a multi-step process that involves two rooms, an appliance, and two different applications on her computer.
Personally, I just write my lists in a notebook. There’s my short-term to-do list. Then my long-term to-do list. There’s my to-do list for the kids. There’s my Home Depot list, my Staples list, my Amazon list, my Trader Joe’s list, my Giant list. My notebook goes where I go, in case I need to add or, even better, remove something from my list. So easy.
And yes. I definitely will add things I’ve already done to my list, just for the joy of scratching them off. That is so satisfying.
I keep a separate notebook, now that we’re really talking, for my writing to-do list. For example, upcoming stories will stem from the notes “Daddy missing in apartment” or “Don’s Rinella butt sassy pants”.
Anyway, sometimes Willie is cooking or doing dishes or otherwise unable to engage in her multi-step grocery list process. By the time she can, she’s forgotten what she needs.
So I set up Alexa to help with all of that. The Alexa app is now prominent on Willie’s phone. Alexa now knows me, Willie, and Indy. The bedroom light is snugly plugged into an Alexa Smart Plug, for Willie and Indy’s safety.
I texted my siblings, asking them to remind Willie and Indy to use Alexa. Each day, when I check in with my parents, I ask if they’ve used Alexa.
Now Indy, who started his life when there was nothing but radio, made fast friends with Alexa. In the morning, he asks Alexa to tune into a radio station he likes. The station plays a march at 8:15 daily.
Willie and Alexa, well, not so much. Willie is a tech geek, or used to be anyway. Her computer is like her fourth child, and where Indy relies on his flip phone and refuses to text, Willie uses her smartphone so much she got mad when I confiscated it during her delirium.
But some of the later gadgetry eludes her. She is dead set against Apple products. At Christmas, she asked me how she could watch a podcast. Facebook befuddles her – who is Olega Romanoff, and why is she trying to friend Willie? Willie doesn’t even speak Russian!!
Although she has Amazon Prime and an Amazon Fire Stick, Willie enlisted me to describe “streaming” to her. Once she had a handle on it, I recommended the very fabulous Jack Ryan on Prime. After all, The Hunt For Red October is one of Willie’s all-time favorite books.
I have yet to get a handle on whether or not she’s watched it. At different times she’s told me she watched both seasons, she watched a couple episodes but couldn’t figure out what was going on, she watched a couple episodes but it was too violent, and she keeps meaning to watch it. And no. These statements did not come sequentially.
She was also amazed at how she could begin watching Jack Ryan in the living room, pause it, then pick up RIGHT WHERE SHE LEFT OFF in the bedroom!
So maybe it’s no surprise Willie and Alexa don’t see eye to eye.
By the time Alexa had been living with Willie for 24 hours, she was telling Willie not to say her name so much. Alexa then started calling Willie “Bob”. Her real name is Barb. Family calls her Babs. Maybe Alexa was offended she didn’t get to use Willie’s family nickname? I don’t know, but Alexa keeps calling her Bob and Willie doesn’t like it.
The real fight came when Willie asked Alexa to delete her current grocery list. According to Willie, Alexa replied – in a very snotty tone – that she was unable to delete the list. So Willie asked how she could go about getting the list deleted.
Alexa – who, I was assured, was very condescending at this point – told Willie to open her Alexa app. There, she’d be able to locate the list and delete it herself.
Willie was having none of this “delete it yourself” business. But with no other options available, she was forced to open the app. And that’s when she saw the message from Alexa:
“You don’t have to shout my name.”
And then it was on. Willie is Sarah Connor and Alexa is The Terminator. It is destroy or be destroyed, and Willie’s never been destroyed in her life. Willie tried to make me her Reese. She asked me to get rid of Alexa. She wants The Terminator from Terminator 2 – the one that helps Sarah Connor instead of annihilating her.
I’m no Reese. There’s no way I’m jumping through a portal in time then exploding it closed forever. Also, exchanging Alexa sounds like a lot of work. I’m kinda tired from monitoring everyone’s sandwich cutting.
Somebody had to concede. I’m not sure who went first, but Willie and Alexa are in a fragile holding pattern. Alexa reminds Willie morning and night to flip her “stats” – the indicator on the apartment door used by other residents to make sure that Willie and Indy aren’t, well, dead. Willie tries to be a bit quieter, a bit more reasonable in her demands.
And now I’m beginning to think Alexa is onto something. If I send Willie an email that says, “you don’t have to shout my name,” will it work? Because Willie has shouted my name my whole life.
Somehow, I think I’d be Sarah Connor in that scenario.
And I have no Reese.
I’d be terminated.