2012 Ended In The Twilight Zone

It really wasn't a bad year. In fact, it had some remarkable moments. Among them:

• We were able to see all of our kids at least three times, including Christmas.
• There was a Pixar Animation cruise.
• Alison surprised us (not easy to do) by appearing on our anniversary (and we got to meet her boyfriend, Shane).
• All of the planned outdoor work, including the extra projects, was finished before the end of Summer.
• The Seahawks are in the playoffs!

There were also some sad moments. I lost three uncles (all of my mom's brothers) within six weeks.

There was a major stressful event: Mom had open heart surgery one week before Christmas (she's doing well).

But there was one event at the end of the year that transported it into The Twilight Zone. (cue music)

While decorating the house for Christmas, it became clear that we needed to move the iRobot vacuum cleaner upstairs so it would not eat the faux snow of the Christmas village or try to stuff itself with the Christmas tree skirt (both occurred in 2011). So, the Hoover went downstairs and the iRobot went upstairs. I set two "sentries" in order to keep it from roaming into the two guest rooms or the den and just focus its efforts on the master bedroom area. Here is where it started to get weird. I started it (a difficult process requiring the pressing of the center "clean" button), it backed away from its docking station, turned right and immediately bumped into the cedar chest. No problem because it is programmed to navigate around obstacles so it began to test the territory for open space in which to run and clean. Having found a clear path, it quickly moved forward…limping.

Yes, it was LIMPING!

I pressed the "clean" button to stop it and then the "dock" button. Instead of moving forward, it said, "Please, clean the dirty brushes." Really, it said that. In the nearly five years we have had that machine, it has never said a word. Now, we move it from its normal spot and it starts limping and talking! I'm not sure if it was ordering me around or just whining but it wouldn't run so I cleaned the brushes and started it again. It was still limping. I figure if dog-to-human years are 7-1, then perhaps robotic-vacuum-cleaner-to-human years are 15-1 and it has a right to limp. But on the next scheduled cleaning (yes, it runs on a schedule), it just sat there. When I tried to manually start it, it gave the same "clean the dirty brushes" routine. I did it again and started it. It limped and stopped. Then it said, "Please, clean the right wheel and remove any debris."

Really.

I spent over an hour taking that machine apart and cleaning everything. Upon reassembly, it still limped but seemed to work okay otherwise. Now all the decorations are put up for the next eleven months so I decided to take the iRobot back to its accustomed hiding spot downstairs under the china cabinet. 

Now it runs perfectly again! No limping. No talking.

It didn't even say, "Thank you!" But that carpet had better be clean when we come home from church on Wednesday night or we're going to have words.