My cat was losing interest in her toys, so I thought, hey, I’ll get one of those robot vacuums for her. I googled, “Best vacuums for cats to ride on,” but all the results were about sucking up cat hair, not about being a mode of transport. But then it occurred to me, perhaps a vacuum would be a good idea just for cleaning purposes. My floor was filthy, after all. Note I say that in the past tense, as I forgot all about my cat and her needs and bought a Roborock S5 Max, and it’s changed my life! Well, actually, as I write this, I am lying on the couch with my cat on my legs, so perhaps there is no obvious change, but at least it’s changed my flat. I can’t even describe (or rather, won’t) how disgusting it had gotten. It never occurred to me to clean it, though I did occasionally think, if I had read a newspaper article about someone like me, where I was the victim of something and they’d had to break in to my flat and then describe it, I would have no sympathy for that person — that gigantic Boston fern was quite right to topple over and crush her.
Anyway, since someone advised using paragraphs, I will start a new one here and thus now must justify it. I’ve had the robot for a couple weeks and I’ve used it almost every day. It forced me to pick up a lot of crap that was hiding in the corners and, to be honest, in the middle of rooms, and when it completed its first mission, and my Persian rugs actually changed colour — it was like in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy goes from sepia to HDR — I just stared and then toppled over, despite the fern being nowhere near, and it was OK, as the floor was perfectly clean. My cat also decided to topple over, and we luxuriated in a floor that we could eat on, but from now on, wouldn’t — apart from Noir, of course, but her food is at least in a dish. And if it isn’t, the robot gets it.
I am also getting more exercise, as every day, I must carry a heavy mirror that leans against the wall to one room or the other, so that the robot can clean there. And an old desktop computer, minus the desk, which I’m beginning to think I should recycle, as it hasn’t worked in several years. These are things that the robot is allowing me to contemplate.
My point in writing this is, if you are a disorganised slob like me, a robot vacuum will help! I now feel myself to be a respectable person — apart from the spare bedroom, which the robot has not yet entered. I keep the door to it closed. If Noir were a romantic heroine (which I’m sure she feels herself to be, apart from the romance, which both of us can do without), and I were the rich man in gators keeping her imprisoned in my castle, that is the room where I’d be keeping the crazy aunt, who had been witness to my bigamous ways. However, perhaps in contemporary times, the isolated aunt sends missives to the Financial Times from the living room couch, where her testimony is restricted to household appliance recommendations, and her ability to escape, by a cat.
As I write this, I’m comforted in thinking that my nephew does not read the FT. And that while the Room that None May Enter may no longer be a route to gothic adventure, it could be handy to put the mirror there. And maybe that old computer.