TIE O’ THE DAY is pleased to introduce the arrival of a new pet at our house. As you know, Skitter and I have been angling for a new critter for a couple of years now. Suzanne has not joined us in our wish. At some point, we finally gave in to the reality that Skitter is so weird there is no plausible way she could handle having another living creature in the house 24/7 without shaking to her tragic death—no matter how badly she tells me she wants an animal pal. Folks, it’s good to let go of the impossible (at least until you figure out how to make it possible). That’s the only way to be free to embrace The Great What Is.
When I got Suzanne the bigly red rug for her birthday, I somehow knew I would eventually be getting her a Roomba to keep her rug immaculate—so a Roomba was Suzanne’s Christmas present. It has made itself at home here with us since then. And it is exactly the kind of pet Skitter can calmly co-habitate with. Part turtle, part manta ray, all vacuum—The Great What Is for us is a Roomba we’ve named Rumi, and we’ve pet-utized it. Suzanne programmed Rumi to be a primarily nocturnal beast.
Skitter has a routine tendency to leave trails of food and slivered bits of dog chews on Suzanne’s red rug—and nowhere else at all—for us to gaze upon with wonder. While Suzanne was initially programming and trying out Rumi, Skitter tried very hard to relate to the new critter, but she was sore afraid of it. She watched it move and it caused her to vibrate with fear, as Rumi seemingly took over the house. It’s not like we could explain a Roomba to Skitter to ease her anxiety. She is just a dog even though I pretend she’s not, and as such she only has a brain the size of a walnut. In the end, I think we came up with a pleasantly livable solution for all involved.
We decided to make Rumi a primarily nocturnal animal. It runs only in the middle of the night. This suits Skitter just fine cuz she’s asleep upstairs when Rumi has run of the first floor. So we have a new “pet,” but Skitter doesn’t have to be askeered of its furtive movements. Skitter ventures over to where Rumi sleeps all day on its own pad, to see and smell her new pet. And Rumi and Skitter occasionally nap together in the dog bed—if Rumi is off. Of course, Suzanne never sees Rumi in motion either because she’s also upstairs asleep when Rumi is awake and active. Rumi and I are tight, however, because I have insomnia often so I go downstairs to putter around and eat popsicles or ice cream while I’m not sleeping: Rumi and I thus share its brief awake time. I guess you could say I supervise the work as Rumi does it.
Twice I have come downstairs in the morning to find Rumi motionless and self-trapped in the tiny 1/2 bathroom, having accidentally pushed the door closed behind itself as it toiled away at cleaning the floor for us. Poor thing. I can imagine Rumi bouncing from one bathroom wall to the next, over and over again, for an hour or so, trying to find a way out and back to home base. Rumi looked so pathetic when I found it like that, so now I try to remember to shut that bathroom door before going up to bed. Yes, I know Rumi is a mere object, but I still felt so sad to picture it trapped and temporarily dead, so close—but yet so far—from its tiny Roomba helipad. Oh, it had places to go.