Call me Jane Jetson.

I now have my very own Rosie.
She arrived in a cardboard Amazon box on the front porch. My husband had been eagerly awaiting the birthday present he ordered online and literally jumped up and down with excitement when he spotted it, unopened, in the foyer.
The kids were called in to witness the unveiling of this "best birthday present ever!"
I got it mostly opened when I spotted the word "Roomba", closed the box back up and laughed out loud "You did not get me a Roomba."
According to a guy a work, this was the "best thing ever!" and now we own this item too.
It truly is a luxury item and I understand how silly it seems. But we don't own a yacht or a timeshare in the Caymans or even a Wii, so what's so wrong with owning a Roombot vacuum?
It's truly a funny little thing. It whizzes around the house in no particular fashion whatsoever, even though the instruction booklet tells me it has a carefully programmed plan. It starts in a circle then furiously heads to various spots around the room, bumping into and sometimes skimming the same place over and over and over.
The children place various pieces of scrap paper and tufts of yellow lab dog fur around the room to test it and cheer when it disappears under the round robot of suction.
In fact, the only true drawback to the thing is that we spend more time watching it (and the kids chasing it and the dog trying to get away from it) than we do going about our business, (which the instruction book says we should.)
The guy at work who recommended "the best thing ever!" warned us that we would spend much of our time trying to figure out a pattern or trying to direct it where we want it to go. But alas, this Roomba has it's own agenda and there's no controlling it. We even talk to it to no avail.
But if we just put it to work and walk away and give it a long enough time, at some point it hits just about every major dirt pile. It's my little robot duster and as long as I give it fresh water and food, I mean empty its collection bin and recharge frequently, we seem to be getting along just fine.
I did chastise my husband for buying me an appliance, and of all things a vacuum cleaner, for my birthday, but we decided that it's really more like a new pet. Except that it doesn't shed fur all over the house, it scoops it up!