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“This is the
way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth, brush our teeth. This is the way we
brush our teeth, so early in the morning.”
News
headlines to nursery rhymes, that’s me. When I read that a toothbrush has been
devised with artificial intelligence, that ditty swept full blown through my
mind.
How nice, I
thought. Aw, a new relationship. “Uh, hate to mention, but you need to pay more
attention to your left lower molar.” “Gee, thanks. Will do.”
With rolling
eyeballs, I dismissed the thought. But like a lot of nursery ditties, this one
hung out with me all day which meant I inevitably gave further thought to the
idea of a toothbrush with artificial intelligence.
Relationship.
A new relationship. Yes, perfect analogy. And like many a new relationship, this
one has all the inbuilt propensities for disaster. Having had a disastrous
relationship or two in my past, I’m rather an authority. I know of which I
speak.
It starts
innocently enough. Golleeee, an intelligent toothbrush. You surely will enhance
my life.
A really
intelligent toothbrush will keep silent at this point.
Once
familiarity sets in, things change. “I wish you’d take care of your teeth
before you shower, not afterwards—drives me nuts.”
“You
neglected to squeeze that last shot of toothpaste from the tube. Waste not,
want not.”
“By the way,
during laboratory trials, we used XXX Brand, not that inferior YYY that you
use. I do wish you’d change brands for me. XXX Brand is guaranteed to clean 25%
better than YYY in lab tests in which I cooperated. And 80% of sub-intelligent
human test participants agreed that XXX tastes better.”
“If you
really cared for me, you’d quit drinking that nasty ol’ coffee and tea. Your
teeth are awfully stained; surely you’re aware.”
By this
point I’m ready to smuggle an old-fashioned brush on a stick into the kitchen
and begin teeth hygiene on the sly.
But AITB
won’t shut up. “I hear you, Traitor. Get back in here and brush, brush, brush.
NOW!”
I suppose I
could live with that kind of personal interference if the AITB kept its
interference, I mean influence, to the boundaries of my mouth. But this is, of
necessity, a relationship, remember?
And lest you
think it far-fetched that I call this a relationship, remember, the TB contains
some manner of intelligence. Harken back, if you will, to when you were a
toddler and would not go to sleep without Blankie or Lambie Pie or Teddy and
they were inanimate objects. Point made.
I almost can
guarantee it will take little time for AITB, which you no doubt will have named
by now, though perhaps not a flattering name, sorry, I digress, to move from “I
wish you wouldn’t eat garlic” to “Slept in today, did you?”
Soon enough
you will hear, “You spent how much on
that? Do you really think you needed one?”
The day the
toothbrush says to me, “Do you really mean to wear that in public?” is the day I go to the less-desirable section of
town and after discrete inquiries, hire a hitman to abduct the tooth device on
a day when I’m gone and behead it with a machete.
You don’t
expect me to do it myself, do you? After all, I have a relationship with him,
it, that. I can’t just toss him in the trash, can I? I can’t bear to listen to
its pitiful screams, after all, once, we loved one another.
Sondra
Ashton
HDN: Looking
out my back door
October 31,
2019
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