Bitter House on the Prairie

Every time I have to go outside to do some manual labor, ie work on my pizza garden, cut down a tree, or mow a lawn, I feel like I’m one of those freaking kids in Little House on the Prairie. Goodness gracious, it’s 2016. Isn’t there an app for this yet?

I think the days of us having to do anything manually should be past us now. I know it is good for jobs and blah, blah, blah, but really should people be left to do customer service or pushing McDonald’s on us? Machines would be way better at upgrading us to a large Value Meal than us humans ever would. And finding one of the four responses that customer service agents give us drolly could easily be programmed into a computer. And I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard for a computer to throw in a little small talk, or awkward conversation if a person requested that.

I should be able to see the lawn being mowed by RoboBen and the GardnerBot 2000 could really mess up the tomatoes just as good as Bitter Ben. I could sit by watching all this from my video monitor if I wanted (I don’t), and watch TV or play video games that the robots programmed for us. And as far as TV shows go, even a low grade robot could write better movies than the Hallmark Channel, but if you crave those, they could dumb it down for us if we really need them to.

Many may argue that we would end up in the shape of the people in Wall-E, but I disagree. Computers are fully capable of making exercise equipment work on us while we are sleeping. “Oh no, it wouldn’t be the same if the computers did it for us,” you are probably saying.  “Uh, yeah it would,” says me. We would feel the same amount of sweat and our legs would be just as tired, but some of us would still need to just not exercise, because how could we be bitter if we weren’t always out of shape when we were chasing after our RoboDog on his walk?

And if you still really want to have your commute be a bitter part of your day, the CommuterBot of Bitterness(or CBB for short) would always be glad to stick you in traffic with all the other bitter people that need that anger to feel alive. They will even throw in points for hitting metal pedestrians, and you can level up for getting better at it over time. This might actually give you an incentive to sit in traffic. You could earn patience achievements for sitting 5 minutes at a light, or not honking when another person almost killed you. Heck, this can be your full time job, turned into a game, if you were missing all that time you had at work. Or you could make catching Pokemon in real life your job. Just be careful with Pikachu, cause he can be quite shocking.

And if you have the need to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day, that can be arranged. Annoying robo-workers can be programmed to annoy your every need. They can talk too much at meetings, chew on their food too loudly or talk about their favorite sports team long after you wanted them to stop. There can even be annoying boss sending you multiple emails about your TPS reports, or come up behind you unexpectedly while you are updating your fantasy football league or blogging.

And if you are one of those people that crave ditching work/school/responsibilities there could be weather app for every occasion. They can even help you make up a new excuse at the drop of a hat while giving you the necessary alibi for your Ferris Bueller’s Day off. Sing on a float, drive your dad’s Porsche, or be totally scared that you are going to get suspended for missing one more day. It’s all up to you.

Let’s stop living in the Bitter House on the Prairie, where all the boring stuff like churning the butter has to be done by hand. It’s time for the robots to take over. And even if you do like living on the Prairie, there’s an app for that. There is no reason we should be doing anything manually unless we want to.

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter House on the Prairie Ben