Mom may like the gifts Dad gave her for Mother’s Day, but I have to admit I’m a little insulted by them. As you may recall, Dad likes to give practical gifts. These are no different. But I feel like I’m being accused of dereliction of duty! My job is being replaced by artificial intelligence!
Dad gave Mom a new “smart” doorbell! One that can identify who is at the door whether it is a human, animal, or car. Sure I admit since Angel Chuck Billy crossed Rainbow Bridge, I’ve been a little lax on guard duty, and in light of my recent blindness, I may have missed a few things. But I did not think I’d be demoted by a doorbell! I’m sure Dad means well by giving me a backup for guard duty. And using artificial intelligence for surveillance is the wave of the future, freeing dogs to spend more time playing and less time barking. But Angel Chuck Billy took great pride in the fact that we went close to a decade without a working doorbell, thanks to his diligence of barking at both real and imagined visitors. I wonder what he’d think of my job being outsourced to a doorbell? Ok, I have an idea of what he’d think. Probably something to the effect that we should have got one sooner, before I even lost my vision, based on my door monitoring skills. Point taken.
That’s not the only gift Dad gave Mom. He also set up a surveillance camera inside to monitor of all things – ME! I know work from home can be controversial, and management likes to keep a close watch on employees these days with a cameras on policy. But do they really need to spy on me? Dad’s excuse is since I’m limited to downstairs, because stairs are not safe as I adjust to being blind, the camera would be a convenient way to keep a close eye on me when they are upstairs or on the rare occasion they go out without me. This especially holds true for at night. Lately Mom has been sleeping on the couch, to keep me company. She’s in no rush to leave me alone, because I still have to wear my post-surgery cone a few more nights as my stitches heal. But this implies she will someday return to her more comfortable bed, which I understand. I hardly think though that a surveillance camera is necessary! After all, we all know Dad sleeps through anything. It can alert him all it wants, and he won’t wake up. And Mom is a light sleeper, so the slightest noise brings her downstairs to check on me. No app needed!
However, now that I know he is watching me, I realized I better put on a good show to prove to them that I am still working despite my change in perspective. To prepare for navigating on my own on the off chance they aren’t there to help guide me, I decided to do my best impersonation of another electronic device – the Roomba! Spoiler alert: Dad’s not a fan of robot vacuums, thanks to my excellent job shedding fur the can never be replaced by AI. Therefore, there’s no risk of him giving Mom one of those. But I digress.
Anyways, all night long I meticulously worked my way around the downstairs, starting along the perimeter with the walls, cabinets, and furniture to guide me, while slowly making my way to the center of the rooms and back again. Mom could tell from the precision of my movement, determined breathing, and the occasional happy dance, that I was on a mission to map the rooms in my mind. Thankfully she didn’t interrupt my important work. She did, however, help me when I got confused going off course, or awkwardly got my cone stuck on something. By morning when Dad joined us, before Mom could say anything about how I spent the night, he commented on what a great job I did maneuvering around the furniture to promptly greet him. Hopefully that will convince Dad that I still have everything under control, and he really didn’t need to accuse me of dereliction of duty, by outsourcing my job to a doorbell and spying on me with a camera!
