The Full Suburban: It’s time for robots to rule the chores

My aunt and uncle live in Coeur d’Alene but are snowbirds through the winter at a beautiful second home in California. My parents, always up for a chance to get out of the dreary Spokane weather, often join them for a couple months, as does my grandma. It’s a real party, and I’m not joking. They take hikes, go out to dinner, shop a mean list at Costco and play card games every night. They joke that they’re living in a group home.

Needing a little rest and relaxation myself, I decided to head down for a quick visit about a month ago. There are no words to describe how welcoming, tranquil and clean the “group home” is. To come from my house, where someone is usually pounding out a song on the piano and every surface is covered with puzzle pieces, homework, cereal boxes and markers – well, entering the California house is like stepping into another dimension.

The first morning I was there, I woke up to glorious sunshine streaming through the window and the absence of a 5-year-old smashed up against my back – a noticeable and welcome change. I also heard the sound of something constantly whirring out in the living room. “What is that noise?” I wondered as I lay there curious but not caring that much since it was still 100 times quieter than whatever was going on at my house that very minute 1,200 miles away.

I wandered out into the living room and saw the culprit: a Roomba, one of those cylindrical automatic vacuums that you set free in your house and hours later has picked up every stray crumb and pet hair from off the floor. I was mesmerized. Its path was haphazard, and it seemed like there was no way it would ever cover the amount of ground it needed to cover, but my aunt assured me that in a few hours, the floors would be spotless and the Roomba would scoot itself back to its docking station ready to deploy the next time it was needed.

I have never wanted anything so badly in my entire life. Walking through my living room at home is like picking your way through a minefield. Legos, chess pieces, hair bands, toy cars, blocks, scraps of paper – there are little objects scattered literally every 6 inches, the result of six kids, two adults and one dog coexisting in the same space.

“Why don’t you do a quick tidy a few times throughout the day, or, better yet, get your kids to clean up after themselves?” you may be asking in an unfairly judgmental fashion. Excellent question and one I have no legitimate answer for except to say: My will to tidy has been crushed by the inescapable fact that the mess will just reappear in some form or the other literally minutes after we have gone through the effort to clean it up. It might be a different iteration (library books for Legos, Nerf guns for Hot Wheels cars, bouncy balls for hair bands), but the mess will inevitably return.

But if I knew that once we went through the effort to pick up the mess, a robot vacuum would come through behind us sweeping up all the yuckiness that remained? Now that I could get behind. My friend bought a Roomba for herself last year and managed to pass it off to her preschooler as a robot she had gotten him for his birthday. Whenever it’s time to vacuum, he jumps around like he’s just won the lottery.

“We get to turn on my robot today!” he’ll cheer when I drop him off after a play date, his mom shrugging her shoulders sheepishly behind his back. If an automated vacuum can thrill a 4-year-old, think what it could do for an overworked, middle-age mom who is so tired that she once cleaned up a mess on the floor by blotting it with a dirty sock that was lying nearby. I’m all for robot world domination. They can start under my coffee table.