“Green Day is the Nickelback of punk.” – Jerry McLaughlin
(Note: This quote has nothing to do with the writing below, I just thought it was amusing and deserved recognition.)
You’ve been waiting for the doorbell to ring all day.
Where is the UPS guy? It’s getting late, it’s almost five o’clock, do they deliver after five?
You can see the marks on your carpet from pacing back-and-forth all afternoon.
Where the hell is-
Ding. Dong.
It’s here!
You open your door to the huge, four-foot tall brown package, and lift it into your den. You rip into it; fuck box-knives, you tear at the cardboard and Styrofoam with your bare hands, until finally…
It’s unwrapped.
Your own personal robot is now ready to be turned on.
He does everything-
- Talks.
- Cooks.
- Cleans.
- Laughs at your jokes.
- Tells stories.
- Can drink alcohol.
- Has an 18mega-pixel camera on his crotch.
- Is a home-security system.
- Keeps secrets.
- Holds 60,000,000 songs.
- …and can learn emotions.
Wow. Finally.
You activate him, and watch in eagerness as he is brought to life.
“Hello ______ , what can I do for you today?”
What do you do, F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K.?
“Anything!”
Hooray! Oh, joyous day!
He is F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K.- Friend And Caring Emotional Bot Or Online Kiosk
You love setting up F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K.
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. is the best.
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. hangs out with you.
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. has drinks with you
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. makes you laugh.
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. plays games with you.
Everything is perfect, or at least it is for a while…
As you wake up, you lean over in bed and proceed to turn on F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. and see how he is doing.
But, something is different.
Something is off.
F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. is displaying an error message that reads,
“ERROR 51: Well, this is the worst day ever.”
What the hell?
“ERROR 28: Why do I even bother some days?”
You try to ignore the errors, you know, like when the ‘check engine light” comes on in your car? But day after day, they keep coming back.
“ERROR 13: Depressing song lyrics.”
This is getting slightly annoying, what’s going on with my fucking robot?
“ERROR 76: Sigh.”
“ERROR 11: Vague sad update.”
“ERROR 2:
That’s it, I’ve had it, I finally scream,
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K.???”
When did my F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K. robot become Marvin from “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?”
Some day somebody’s gonna make you want to
Turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them
Hold you down and make you cry
Don’t you know?
Don’t you know things can change
Things’ll go your way
If you hold on for one more day
Can you hold on for one more day
What’s going on F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K.? Huh?
Level with me.
Why the sadness, what’s the malfunction? Is it a wire? Are you not charged correctly?
Because, I doubt that you were programmed by the top engineers to think that posting a sad, vague, update on an online forum (that only allows a few hundred characters) would be a good or rewarding idea?
There’s no way?!
That would be awful engineering, and I refuse to believe that the smart Asians who built you would do that.
Do you need robot therapy? Maybe lay on the couch for a few hours and talk to a professional toaster, or blender? Get it out, I want you working again!
You were my buddy. My robot friend.
Please F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K…no more sad, vague vagina sputtering, and no more song lyrics. Please.
It’s too much for our relationship. You are but wires and metal.
You are only supposed to be a commodity, and you are taking advantage of my human love. I can never love you, but I can turn you off, and crush you into nothing more than a Coke can.
As a robot who does nothing but have emo errors, you won’t understand if I were to yell back at you and say something like, I don’t know-
“Nobody cares, shut up! Dislike.”
It’s uncomfortable if anything else. It puts everyone around you in a weird spot, and it’s bothersome.
Don’t get me wrong, F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K., I understand a little depression, believe me. However, there is a time and a place; in fact if you think about it, having someone who is manic-depressive and suicidal telling you to ‘tone it down a notch’ is a pretty big wake-up call.
If I wanted the sad model I could have ordered it, in fact it’s called the B.L.O.G.(Bigger List of Online Gloom) F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K seems to think sadness is endearing or acceptable like in the WALL-E model, but they are sorely mistaken. WALL-E is cute, but you still complaining about your ex is not.
WALL-E doesn’t give two fucks about your break-up.
So, I will send you back for now, I’m not going to delete or block you. I’m just going to write a nice letter about the issues I’m noticing in my model, and include it when I ship you back to the manufacturer for repairs.
I hope you take this well, don’t get too upset about this truth, I’m sending you away as a F.A.C.E.B.O.O.K model, I hope you don’t return as a T-1000.
