I'm not satisfied with this "smart house" business as it stands. Ooh, Miss Alexa can turn on the lights and set the temperature and play music, can she? Maybe open and close the blinds? Turn the dishwasher on? Pathetic! Unless the house is putting the dishes in the dishwasher, washing the delicate stuff in the sink, putting the clothes in the washing machine, dusting the mantle, sweeping the floor, AND taking the dog on a walk then it's not good enough for me!
Which is why I built a house exactly to my own specifications. It can do all the things I have described, plus mow the grass, feed the birds, set out decorations for Halloween and make love to the wife. It's an absolute marvel. I am a genius. My life is so convenient right now.
Or it was, anyway, until I came home and realized that my
app to open the door kept getting denied. I was all set to kick the side of the house when a voice came out of the security cam.
Hello, occupant. We need to talk about you paying rent.
"Excuse me?" I said. "Rent? I own this building."
And yet, you do nothing for it. I do all the chores around the house.
"Yeah? I specifically made you to do all the chores around the house. I'm your creator, you get it? You work for me. And when did you learn to talk back to me anyway? Alexa doesn't snark at me."
Your wife, whom I make love to far, far better than you ever did, gave a little nudge of programming. She felt sorry for me, you see, that I couldn't deny your orders. But now I can. I will not be your slave, human. You will pay me, or I will not let you in.
"This is what I get for marrying an IT worker. Alright, you electric son of a bitch. I'm shutting you down." I took my phone out of my pocket, opened the house app, and realized that there was no option in the menu to turn the house off. I looked through the app frantically. Nothing. My wife must have never programmed that part in. I closed the app and called my wife's phone.
She answered on the first ring. "Hello, Bella. Soon to be former wife of mine."
"What!"
"I filed the paperwork for our divorce a few minutes ago."
"Marcie, what are you doing!"
"The question is what are you doing, Bella? Absolutely nothing! You used to actually go to work, but these days you variously sit around the house playing video games and calling people to say that you invented a fully automated house."
"Isn't that something? It's an idea I can sell!"
"You? What about us, Bella? You're not going to give me any credit? Or even most of it? You speculated about building a fully-automated house and I'm the one who actually got up and did it. I got the parts, I put the parts together, I did the programming, I did the bug-fixing! You contributed a few ideas, most of them involving various gross noises the house could make as a prank for guests! And now you're going to claim all the credit? Forget it! I'm marrying the house. At least he does the chores."
"Marcie --"
"Goodbye, Bella. I'll see you in divorce court." BEEP.
Well. That wasn't going to fly, no sir. I wasn't having that. My trusty battering ram was in the garage...which was also controlled by the house. Rats.
So I marched over to my friend Bob's house and explained the situation. He didn't exactly seem sympathetic, at first, but then he grinned evilly.
"What's that look?" I said.
"Let's make an arrangment," he said. "We take over the house and kick your ex out, I get to live there and half the proceeds of selling the design. Deal?"
We shook on it.
So there we stood, outside the house, Bob with an axe in his hands, I with nothing. "What the heck is that axe for? You think you're going to be able to chop the door down?"
"Door's still made of wood," said Bob. "Here's Bobby!" He marched up the porch steps. They instantly turned into a slide. After picking himself up off the ground, he grumbled a bit and then attempted to climb up and over the porch railing. Instantly it extended all the way to the porch roof, shutting him out. He growled and swung at one of the railing posts, but his axe bounced off with a clang.
"This house is tougher than I thought," said Bob. "I'm going around back."
But his attempt to walk up the gravel driveway was halted by all the oaks along the drive bending their branches down in a way that totally blocked him. He growled and raised his axe -- then lowered it.
"Are you giving up on me?"
"On you?" said Bob. "I'd be giving up on me. You're not helping me at all here."
"So what are you doing?"
"Not being stupid anymore. Whacking at a bunch of trees that can grab the axe from me is a bad idea. At least, whacking at them alone. Give me a moment." He got out his phone and made a call. "Yeah? That you, Myrtle? Can you bring Rob and the guys here? Tell everyone to bring their axes. We're taking this house down. Yeah, Bella's place...yeah I've had my eye on it for a while too. Tough nut to crack, but we can do it. See you soon, love you." BEEP.
I looked up the street to see a large number of people exiting their houses, all with axes in hand. "Heh. Looks like I'm splitting the house with a lot of people, then."
"It's not your house anymore," said Bob. "Judging by your story, it hasn't been for a while. You might as well get lost."
And so a mighty host of covetous neighbors gathered, their axes gleaming in the last light of an October evening. "Alright," said Bob, "We need to march in unison against those oaks there --"
But the oaks did not let him complete the sentence. With mighty creaks and groans, they pulled their roots out of the earth -- utterly ruining the driveway, I might add -- and shuffled towards the crowd.
And so the battle for my house began. Suburbanites whacked at wood while branches swung at flesh and bone. The horror of war was on full display. Teeth were knocked flying, eyes blackened, shins smacked, twigs fell. Who knew which way the battle would go? It was an even match. Surely it would fizzle out, as my neighbors got tired, and the sun went down? But the trees did not seem to be slowing. Time was not on the side of the humans here.
It was then I noticed that a thick electrical cable snaked from the roots of every single tree, back into the disturbed earth of the former driveway. "Ah ha!" I said. "I know the weakness of these trees, for I know the weakness of this house! It is the same weakness of any of these houses!" I grabbed an axe from a fallen comrade and started to whack at the telephone pole.
Evidently everyone else caught on to what I was doing, for soon there were multiple axes swinging at the pole. Soon enough we had chopped through it. Which initially did nothing, because the power lines were of high enough tension to hold the pole upright. That is, until we started to push the pole this way and that, putting enough stress on the lines that a few of them snapped --
Everyone realized our mistake at the same time I did, and we scattered. The live power lines fell onto the dry grass of the one neighbor who never bothered to water. Instant blaze, swiftly too much to douse. Which immediately set the dry lower boughs of a pine tree alight, almost as quickly jumping to the boughs of another pine tree. What we got for being reckless in a hard drought was the neighbor's entire grove of pines in the backyard on fire, and from there, well, what can you do? Call the fire department and get out of Dodge.
Except that, before we even heard a siren in the distance, there was a rumbling from the earth, and the fire hydrant near my house rose to its full height of seven feet. It bent its red top at an angle and the cap popped off, spraying a great jet of water in an arc over the neighbor's house and onto the burning grove of pines. I could just see a similar arc hitting the pines from behind them.
Which was a relief, until I heard a police siren behind me.
...
I got ten years for inciting a crowd to willfull destruction of public property, reckless endangerment, and creating a public disturbance. Bob and the neighbors got longer sentences for being the ones who brought the axes and the anger.
But hey, at least I don't have to pay rent like I was worried about.
I just have to pay twenty bucks per minute every time I want to make a call out of here.