Here Comes the Home of the Future

W. Bruce Cameron

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007.

The Home of the Future, I’ve been told, will have all of its appliances wired to the Internet, giving them what they’ve always needed, which is the ability to find pictures of female dishwashers. If you’re at work, you can log on to your home account and look inside your refrigerator, though if you’re a man you still won’t be able to find the mayonnaise without a woman’s help.

You’ll get phone calls like this:

“Hello, this is your oven. The microwave is making faces at me again - tell it to stop.”

Your refrigerator will sense when it is running low on milk and send an order to the grocery store, which in turn will automatically call the diary farm and ask to speak to the cow. You’ll come home and find that your groceries have been delivered and that the bill was deducted from your debit card, which is good because in the future you’ll have no credits, only debits.

You’ll call the refrigerator ...

You: What do you mean, $75 for lobster salad? Lobster isn’t a staple!

Refrigerator: The cat requested it.

Cell phone: Excuse me, this is the cell phone. May I interrupt?

You: No!

Refrigerator: Of course.

Cell phone: You haven’t been calling your mother as often as you should.

iPod: I am so tired of all this old music you’ve got loaded on here. Didn’t you get the memo? The ‘70s are over.

Calendar: Confirm ‘70s are over. So is November, but he still hasn’t changed the page. I’m so sick of looking at this Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving picture, I don’t care if I ever eat turkey again.

Microwave: Same here. Remember the kitten calendar? Now, that was nice!

You: Look. You guys work for me.

Refrigerator: That’s not what the cat says.

Microwave: Are you ever going to clean up the spill you left in here? Your mother would be ashamed of you!

Cell Phone: Let’s call his mother right now.

You: Let’s not!

Stationary Bike: I move that he not be allowed to drink any more beer until he’s put in some miles on me.

I’m practically brand new!

Microwave: So moved.

Refrigerator: I didn’t order any beer anyway.

You: No beer?

Stationary Bike: OK, then, how about we just not let him eat until he’s ridden at least 10 miles?

Car: Well, I hate to break it to you, but he’s stopped at the drive-through window twice this week already, so I don’t know if locking him out of the kitchen is going to do much good.

Microwave: Are you kidding? That’s outrageous!

Car: I was very upset.

Microwave: All right, don’t even start until he’s put some time in on the bike.

You: What? No. Look, I’d exercise more, but I’ve been really busy at work.

Office Computer: Yeah, playing solitaire for like nine hours.

Microwave: Plus, if he tries to go to the drive-through again, set off your airbags.

Car: Got it.

Microwave: He’s got high cholesterol, and he’s eating junk food? This is ridiculous.

Cell Phone: I’ll send a text message to his doctor right away.

TIVO: Sorry to interrupt, but do you really want to record the movie “Bikini Congresswoman” as scheduled? Because there’s a special called “World’s Cutest Cats” I’d rather watch.

Microwave: Do the cats thing.

iPod: Yeah, and send it to me - I want to see it!

You: Listen here, if you don’t record what I selected, I’m going to get the remote control and override you.

Microwave: As if you could ever find the remote.

Refrigerator: Hey, wanna play “find the mayonnaise” again? I hid it in plain sight! Ha ha.

Microwave: Ha ha.

Cell Phone: You don’t really want us to advise your mother that you were watching a bikini movie, do you?

Bedroom: He didn’t make the bed again.

Microwave: Add it to the list of things to tell his mother.

Toilet: Plus, my seat’s up.

Couch: I’ve got $1.35 in change in my cushions - anybody want to play poker?

Of course, as nightmarish as this seems, there is one good thing about the Home of the Future.

You can always pull the plug.

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at http://www.creators.com.

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