Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
A few months ago, my son-in-law, Gawain (he was my daughter Millicent's knight in thrift-store armour), bought me an Alexanderina for my birthday. It was a personal, intelligence-driven blahbidy blah that was supposed to make my life easier. All it did was frustrate the bejesus out of me! I would ask it a simple question like, "Alexanderina, where is the thing I use to make supper?" And it would respond, "I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to that." So, I would say, "Alexandrina, you know what I'm talking about. The thing I use to make that dish that everybody likes." And it would respond, "I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to that." So, I would say, "Alexanderina, don't be difficult. I'm talking about the thing I use to make that dish that everybody likes. You know, the stew that everybody likes!" And it would respond, "You can find a crock pot on Etsybetsyteensyweensy..."
Of course, a crock pot was not what I wanted, so I would say, "Alexanderina, no! Go to your room!" That shut it up, let me tell you!
It might have gotten to the point where I told it to take a long walk off a short pier (and you can imagine how happy I would have been when it responded, "I cannot do that. I have no legs."), but for one thing: my daughter-in-law Princess Jasmine (who was not royalty, her parents just had high hopes) had heard that Alexanderina could be customized with the voice of someone dearly departed.
Nobody was so dearly departed as my husband of 57 years, Charlton.
Now, when I asked it if it remembered the TV show that used to make us laugh uproariously at minorities, Alexanderina would respond, "I'm sorry. I don't know the answer to that." And when I would say, "Sure you do. It was that show, with that actor we didn't like because he looked nothing like us but we had to grudgingly admit that he was really funny." And Alexanderina would respond, "I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to that."
Now that it had my late husband Carlson's voice, I could listen to Alexanderina claim ignorance all day!
Soon after the change, Alexanderina stopped working. When Princess Jazmine took it in to be fixed, she was told that its operating system had been erased. Well. My son Desmond was the only computer programmer in the family, so he had to be the one who had done it. When I confronted him, Desmondo denied everything, but I knew better: he had never gotten over being locked in his room for three days with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Pennywise while the theme song from The Exorcist was played over and over on the stereo outside his room. He blamed Chon-Arlt, but, honestly, all the parenting books recommended it!
Then, there was my grandchild Felton "the Fusspot," who, as soon as he heard it speak with my husband's voice, threw Alexanderina into the fish tank. The tetras were especially bright that day, let me tell you! Apparently, he didn't take Charleston telling him that if he didn't eat his vegetables, the tooth fairy would come when he was sleeping and suck his brains out of his nose with a straw in the spirit in which it was intended.
We kept getting Alexanderina fixed, and family members kept messing with it. There was the time it was "accidentally" baked into a grilled cheese sandwich. And the time it was "inadvertently" driven out to the city limits and left to fend for itself. And the time somebody "by chance" recorded over my late husband Carolina's voice, replacing it with Gilbert Gottfried. That one especially hurt.
This experience has left me with one question: should I change my will and leave everything to my cats?
Sincerely,Yo, MindYer Manners,
Emotions. Eww. Sorry, but being allergic to emotions is Macho Code of Manliness approved.
Scratching furiously (because these are the sacrifices a columnist must make for his readers), I carry on. Two possibilities occur to me. One: your late husband was a monster who may not have endeared himself to other members of the family as much as he seems to have endeared himself to you. Two: the cats have framed your family members to trick you into leaving your estate to them after you die.
I'm going to go with...possibility two. My gut tells me that that's the one you're more likely to believe.
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: the last time the Tech Answer Guy ignored his gut, the stock market fell six per cent in less than an hour, swarms of bees carried off small children and raised them as their own across Latin America and Elon Musk won an Oscar. It's one powerful organ, the Tech Answer Guy's gut is; ignore it at your peril!