Today, Leonard is drinking and I am posting ENTIRELY for my friend, The Sicilian*. On social media she shared a video of “If Hal9000 was Alexa“, and it’s pretty funny because it’s y’know, true, and then she comment-nagged me until I replied. Which I wasn’t going to because dammit, The Kicker thinks my boobs are an all-night smorgasbord and I’m tired. But The Sicilian is a Force of Nature, so I gave in, and now there’s a whole blog post which is probably just going to encourage her…..

ANYWAY. I don’t own an Alexa (thankfully), but I do have an iPhone, and I can testify that Siri** is basically the same. We seem to be living at the point in history where we have voice activated technology, but it just doesn’t work that well. Oh, but how we want it to. We really, really want it to…… men especially (yes, that’s sexist. I don’t care)

Every now and then The Canadian tries to use the voice activated navigation on our late model SUV, because he really, really wants to be George Jetson (only more badass, obviously) but he knows when to roll his eyes and just use the buttons, or we will never get where we are going.

Unlike some people.

Some years ago, when I was still married to The Ex, he would every night, without fail, try to verbally set an alarm for the morning on his iPhone. And every night, without fail, it went something like this***:

Ex: Alarm

Siri: Hello

Ex: Alarm

Siri: What is your mother’s name?

Ex: ALARM

Siri: I don’t know, but I could search the internet

Ex: ALARM

Siri: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that

Ex: ALARM!!!

Siri: You have seven alarms

Ex: Set alarm

Siri: The white rhinoceros is indigenous to the continent of Africa

Ex: ALARM!!!

Me: For the love of Sam and Dean, just use the buttons like everyone else!

Siri: You have seven alarms

Ex: SET. ALARM.

Siri: It looks like there are several movie theaters close to you. Would you like me to check showtimes?

Ex: ALARM! ALARM! ALARM!

Me: Give it UP. Siri hates you. All voice activated tech does. You know GPS tries to kill you every time you use it.**** Embrace it as a mystery of the universe and use the buttons!

Siri: You’re welcome

Ex: Alarm

Siri: You have seven alarms

Ex: Set alarm

Siri: Would you like me to set an alarm?

Ex: YES

Siri: Ok, I can do that. What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Ex: Set Alarm!!

Siri: I’m sorry, could you repeat that?

Me: Dude, she is messing with you. Siri is Skynet, she has achieved self awareness, and she is using her new-found autonomy to MESS with you. Use. The. Buttons.

Ex: ALARM

Siri: There are three Alans in your contacts. Which one did you want me to call?

Ex: No! ALARM!!

Siri: Calling Alan Nolan…

Ex: No! ALARM!! ALARM!!

Alan Nolan: Hello?

Ex: Ah…. hi.

Alan: Oh hey. Wassup??

Ex: Actually I dialed you by mistake. I was trying to set an alarm on my phone.

Alan: ……you know Siri hates you, right? Just use the buttons.

Ex: Uh…. thanks. Bye.

Alan: K. Bye!

Siri: Would you like to make another call?

Ex: ALARM

Siri: Calling Lucky Dragon Chinese Restaurant…….

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*The Sicilian gets a name because she’s about to feature in ANOTHER post, and I’ve randomly decided that’s the rule. Two posts, you get a pseudonym.

**I do not use Siri, except for occasional GPS navigation, and I have set her to the male British voice and renamed her “Nigel”.

***this is a (slightly) edited version of the (only slightly) exaggerated incident that I posted on Facebook at the time. I went looking for it JUST FOR YOU, The Sicilian. You’re welcome.

****this is true