My Roomba story

Here's my Roomba story ... totally unrelated to my weight loss journey, however, it is the weekend, so I thought I'd take a break from my usual banter and share an entertaining moment of my life with everyone. Bear with me, when I'm telling a story I tend to babble.

After losing our beloved senior Yellow Lab almost 2 years ago, within 3 months we adopted a darling little female Yellow Lab pup. I was thrilled, as I had never raised a dog from "puppy stage" before. We had always adopted "adult" dogs. May 30th, 2008, beautiful little 8-week-old Sierra came from Ironridge Kennels in Lindsay to her "forever home" in Newcastle. Here's where the adventure begins.

"Roomba" is a robot vacuum, introduced onto the market a few years ago. It's this amazing round re-chargeable vacuum that amazingly avoids falling down stairs, turns before smashing into walls, and will climb from hard floors onto carpet with ease. It consists of a round body, on the base are medium-sized and large-sized rollers that pick up just about anything, and on his (yes, he is a boy ... closest thing I could get to a "man servant" so he HAD to be male) right side a type of spinning brush ... key word there is "spinning" ... it has 6-8 plastic "arms" with brushes on each end, which spin to "edge clean" what the rollers miss. An amazing invention. It rolls around on 2 rubber wheels which are designed in a "checkerboard" type of pattern, to easily grip any floor. My amazing hubby, always trying to make things easier for me, purchased one for Christmas 2007. Roomba was a miracle for me; with several animals, he ran everyday faithfully picking up all the animal fur while I worked, and headed back to his base when he got tired and recharged, ready until the next time I called upon my "man-servant".

Well, as you know, puppies take some time to housetrain, and Sierra was no different from any other puppy; we had our challenges and accidents, but with being self-employed and working from home, I was able to let her out more often and avoid a lot of these "messes". One morning, when Sierra was about 3 months old, we were heading outside for our morning play and her yard deposit. I noticed her wandering around the livingroom and in behind the couch by the window, which wasn't out of the ordinary, she was a very inquisitive puppy, getting into anything she could when mommy wasn't looking. So I very brilliantly decided that while we were outside I would run Roomba so he could so all his cleaning without being chased by Sierra. Over an hour later when we came back inside, I could hear that Roomba was still running, finishing the last of his floor duties. I came into the kitchen where my laptop often sits at the kitchen table, sat down to check email, and smelled an awful "poopy" smell. I immediately blamed the cat ... her litter box is quite a distance from the kitchen, but trust me, you KNOW when she's used it ... it always brings to mind the song by Phoebe from the t.v. show Friends, "Smelly Cat, Smelly Cat, What Are They Feeding You?" Poor cat. She gave me a look like, "geez, Mom, it's not me". I heard Roomba coming towards me in the kitchen, looked down, and to my horror, discovered a delightful brown smear behind him on the floor. As I made my way into the livingroom from the kitchen, the smell became much more intense, and the brown became chunkier. Sadly, Sierra, unbeknownst to me, had already done her "solid" business behind the couch BEFORE we went outside, and I had cleverly turned Roomba on, not even thinking to check the floor. Well, Roomba, being the ever faithful robot vacuum, didn't miss an inch of the livingroom floor ... especially behind the couch where Sierra had pooped. He had run over the poop, his 2 bottom rollers had ground into it, his spinning side brush had picked up the remainder of it, and proceeded to fling it all around the livingroom. The couch, the trim, the white railing, smears of poopy brown all over the laminate floor, and a lovely trail from the livingroom into the kitchen. I was mortified. I just stood there for a few seconds, not knowing what to do first. My son, T.J., came down the hallway from his bedroom and said "What's that smell" and upon seeing the destruction, said "OOHHH (and a word I can't post). Ya. So I immediately grabbed Roomba to prevent further discolouration of any other household contents, set him upside down in the sink, and went about the task of de-pooping my house. The smell was unreal. Sierra was very quickly shut in her crate to avoid spreading it even further. Once I was done cleaning the couch, railing, trim and floors, I set about trying to save my Roomba. Well, the rollers and brush weren't so hard to clean, they are all detachable. The wheels on the other hand presented quite a challenge. Their checkerboard pattern was a raised and lowered pattern ... so the poop was stuck in every "lower" part of the pattern. Well people, Q-Tips sure came in handy this day. I spent 1 hour cleaning poor pooped-out Roomba. I set him outside in the sun to dry after his thorough cleaning. But he has never been the same. He gets really confused when I run him, turning and avoiding objects that aren't there (poor thing has had the s*#!t scared out of him!). When I put him on his charging station, he charges for so long, then the voice comes on and says "charging error" and his green light turns bright orange. I have considered sending my story to the Roomba company to see if, during their hysterics, they will just say "oh, gosh, just send this poor woman a new one" but I haven't got up the courage to do that yet. I'm sure there are brown foreign objects way inside Roomba that I can't get to, that are preventing him from performing his duties in a proper manner. Poor pooped-out Roomba.

That's my story ... hope it made you smile! I should copyright this story ... it's already made it's way back to me through conversation ... Terry shared it with one of our sub-contractors, and just like the old shampoo commerical "she told 2 friends, and so on, and so on" it made it's way back to me ... and I was able to say, "hey, that's my story!"

Have a great weekend ... I have a family birthday tomorrow and a dine-out afterwards, so wish me luck!! Back Monday with weigh-in results!!

Thanks for reading,

Janet xo