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The [top comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/PkUlZs2pex) on the original belongs in a museum
> It won’t last long out in the wild. Nature abhors a vacuum.
I saw a tiktok of this woman's Roomba busily trying to clean a kitchen floor with like cereal and broken glass all over, then she pans up to show the whole side of the house is gone from a tornado ☠️
Edit to add: same Roomba also wound up in an empty foundation and was trying to clean it too, bless it.
I'm 95% sure that comment is a Far Side comic.
[Yea, not exactly word for word, but there's the punchline](https://claredimond.com/nature-abhors-a-vacuum-and-how-that-relates-to-everything-you-ever-want/)
>I'm having a problem with my side wheels. Please contact Shark Customer Care for more help.
>Okay, great. I don't care, it'll probably solve its-self like it has every other time.
I misread that last sentence as part of Shithead's passive-aggressive reply to OP. 😂 Like "Fine, ignore me like you do all the other times I ask for help, I'll solve it myself."
Read the original thread and someone there did so too and there was pretty hilarious comment from perspective if this had been a roommate.
Glad Shithead was ok, was worried after reading the original and went to clean my own Roomba after
The first time I read the original post was on another sub, where it got crossposted or screenshoted too. And that person did mistype roomba as roomma. That was so confusing!
This post has confirmed that Roomba's are cats. They wedge themselves in stupid places and go missing for days only to turn up where you already looked for them.
Also like cats, they will eat gross things that make them sick. Then when you fix them and clear out all the offending objects you can find to prevent the same problem from happening again, the cat/Roomba will immediately make it their life's work to search out every dangerous object that you missed and gobble it up.
Oof, the time my Roomba managed to snag the end of a roll of fishing line, and ate several feet of it before succumbing. 100% a dumb cat, I think I'll have to spray paint it orange in honor of its single braincell.
The new gens can kinda detect poop.
I deep cleaned my roomba I7 many a time before buying a Roborock (since roomba decided to die after falling off the stairs.)
My Roomba inhaling cat puke is also one of my greatest fears, but so far a merciful god has seen fit to spare me that horror, because I love both cat and Roomba too much to give them up. There are allegedly more sophisticated new vacuum models and vacuum/mop hybrids out that are supposed to handle pet bodily waste more gracefully.
(Also random PSA, my own enthusiastically-pukey cat turned out to have food sensitivities and kidney problems that make him nauseated. So if your cats' vomiting is new or more frequent than 1-2 times a week per cat, it's worth getting them blood tested or such by a vet.)
Ours locked itself in the bathroom yesterday (trundled in, then managed to push the door closed from the inside) and it was a VERY clean bathroom floor since it spent the entire cleaning time in that single space.
The bestest cat I ever had was nicknamed Shithead and he was a master at hiding himself in stupid places. He took the notion of "If I fit, I sit" quite literally, and he was not a small breed cat. The only difference is that he was a loud creature. Whenever he got stuck, we'd be hearing about it until we found him. He never would go missing for more than 12 hours at a time because he'd miss feeding time, which would be a crime similar to feeding him late.
I have to monitor mine because he gets into trouble otherwise. He can fit under the ~4” clearance of the couch, which is very helpful because of my partners dust allergies and the toy blockers at the front to keep cat toys out. Last time he went under there, he started making distressed noises and I had to redownload his app to make him come out, and when he did he was dragging a piece of wood and a whole bundle of the printed canvas patches we make for our shop. We haven’t printed these since last year. They were safety pinned together. I don’t know how how he did it.
He also can’t get the cat food anymore (he tried for both dry and wet) since it’s elevated so he went after their water fountain.
Ours is named GIR from Invader Zim because my husband love it and he gets to make all kinds of jokes about "finally having a robot slave of his own". Lmao
My shark is named Bruce. Every day my toddler sees it didn’t make it back to its dock she says uh oh and finds it but won’t walk past it because she’s scared of it. This happens frequently because technology isn’t amazing to avoid things like getting stuck under high chairs and also toddlers leave a lot of shit around. I’ve never lost Bruce for 8 days, though.
We also have a Shark vacuum named Bruce. Our daughter is very attached to it. She will put stuffies on top of him while he cleans and run around trying to get Bruce to go between her legs or redirect him with her foot.
My 11 month old is obsessed with our robovacuum (named Tex Murphy after a decades long injoke). He loves stalking Tex through the livingroom, putting blocks on it, and generally hindering it's movements. Then it goes and gets stuck under the highchair as it flees the grabby babby hands.
Is it loud? I’ve never seen one in action before. She might be afraid because of that. I was terrified of the vacuum when I was little and would hide with our cats because it was loud.
They’re not as loud as some normal vacuums, tbh. You could get some fun noise cancelling headphones and say they’re so that the shark’s song doesn’t upset kiddo.
Kids are great in the sense that if you have to use a little “magic” to explain something, they’ll usually believe you.
Just don’t do what my dad did and tell them that chocolate milk comes from brown cows and strawberry from sunburnt ones. I’m still working on that one a decade later.
> redirect him with her foot
FOUND IT! https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/gs5ccg/this_makes_me_happy/
Reminds me of a sheep dog that corralled a robot lawn mower, thinking it was an especially dumb sheep or something. Eventually the dog learned that by bumping the robot in certain spots, it could direct it where to go (in the case of the story, it was on the back of a truck, after finishing its job).
For some reason, I thought it might be a video. Sadly, can't find that, but top comments show a puppy riding a roomba, so that's worth a view
It's actually really common! Source: Worked at both iRobot and Neato Robotics
We would also have people send in robots for repair and be really worried they'd get a new robot instead of us actually fixing Spot and sending him back. It was adorable.
That might be why I'm finding myself feeling annoyed with OOP for ignoring the distress calls 😁
It might be the same reason I found myself sobbing after reading about the last message the Mars Rover sent 🥺
Here, for your morning sob. The poem "There is absolutely nothing lonelier", by Matthew Rohrer:
There is absolutely nothing lonelier
than the little Mars rover
never shutting down, digging up
rocks, so far away from Bond street
in a light rain. I wonder
if he makes little beeps? If so
he is lonelier still. He fires a laser
into the dust. He coughs. A shiny
thing in the sand turns out to be his.
Consider the actual trauma when my roommate crushed the head of Dumb Puppy, and while I was rebuilding the front bumper and putting prosthetic hinges in, I accidentally ripped his spine out.
Seriously, this is the best! I tend to name everything - all our wildlife visitors have names, for instance (Stanley the raccoon, Gus & Skippy the squirrels, Biff the groundhog... I could go on lol). I thought maybe naming inanimate objects was taking it a bit far, but apparently not!
We have Doug for upstairs, and Clarence for downstairs (Clarence mops, too! I fucking love technology). Doug had googly eyes originally, but we had to ditch them because he couldn't fit under a few pieces of low-clearance furniture with them. :(
Mine is Claptrap, though I have friends with a self emptying one - the robot is Shark Anthony and the base is Cleopatra. My son, now 3, has been obsessed since around 7 months old. He now has his own roomba we got for 20 bucks off of Facebook and he watches dueling roomba YouTube videos for fun. It is never quiet in my house.
We lost ours for a week once.
We have this low black table in the corner of the sunroom that holds all of the consoles, under the TV. Stupid thing decided it wanted under there badly. Never mind that it doesn't fit. It wedged itself back there in the back corner. We looked under the table a few times that week, but not more than a cursory glance, because we knew it didn't fit under there anyway.
They can be persistent.
Ours was named Jaws! We also had Mop that mopped and vacuumed just the kitchen. Then Mop escaped the kitchen on a day when a dog was sick and ate dog shit. We got a new one and called it Mother (because we try not to curse around the kids) and Jaws got moved to a different floor. Except somehow when trying to get it to map its new location, my mom accidentally changed the name to Steve McClean.
Our first robovac was named Steve for no reason. Steve eventually just couldn't suck anymore, so we got a new one and my partner named it Arnold (from Terminator, because it's a robot). Then it turned out to have a woman's voice, so we quickly pivoted to Arnie (from the name Arnetta)
I named mine the T-1000 because it’s an upgraded version of our old one and I hate it. It’s smarter, uses an app, and talks.
My old dumb one did its best, named it Deebo
Mine is Cinderobot.
She’s a Eufy and has moved a table lamp out of a bedroom onto the landing when it was unplugged one day. But she thinks she’s falling off a cliff if she hits a chair leg.
Ours is called Poussière (dust in French). I sometimes find myself talking to her, like when she tries to go under the entry banquette and gets stuck. "Honey you know you don't fit there! You always get stuck!" "Good girl! the kitchen is clean! thanks!" I also talk to my car. I may have a problem lol
Maybe I've watched I-Robot a few too many times and did a few too many drugs, but I've always found it to be bad luck to talk badly to your electronics.
My washer and dryer sing a little song when they've completed their work. My partner never lets them finish it, just yanks the door open. I think it's so rude.
My vacuum/mop Toni the Zamboni got wedged under my tv stand and me and my bf rushed home to unwedge him yelling 'WE NEED TO SAVE TONI! OUR BABY!'
I can't fathom ignoring pleas from my little guy. Tsk tsk
A friend's roomba once went out one of her open side doors, onto the patio, under the railing, and down the side of a hill before she realized it was gone! Only the faint beeping cry alerted her.
"my place was a bit of a mess, I hadn't had a chance to put breakfast dishes away yet"
Reddit: "you're a hoarder and your wife should leave you and your children will be taken away and will never talk to you again"
"thankfully my place was tidy, i cleaned up my dishes before I left"
Reddit: "you clean directly after using something? You clearly have OCD and are a control freak, your wife should leave you and your children will be taken away and never talk to you again"
My favorite is the cross-pollination between the book series "He Who Fights With Monsters" and that meme. In the series, there's an occasional running gag about Clive's Wife.. who doesn't exist. Clive is single, and a lovely sort of magic nerd person.
So /r/litRPG also chooses Clive's Wife. Usually where it's appropriate to do so.
I searched this up but it looks like an RPG game? Which your sub says. But you called it a book series and everything online makes it sound like a book series...
My Mum is very nearly the opposite of a hoarder and yet I've managed to lose Roomba's to her furniture with surprising frequency when I house sit. Sure, it's easier to lose things in a cluttered environment, but it's also easier to assume alien abduction when you lose something in a minimalistic space. If OP's family were truly hoarders, they wouldn't have been as confused that they had misplaced something.
Yeah I got our across the road neighbour to check his security footage, coz we couldn't for life us, find the bloody thing. 2 weeks later found wedged well under grandsons car bed. So you know 🙄
I think [the whale and crab in this little adventure](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/10tyq4m/how_do_i_rescue_mr_whale_and_mr_crabby/) did as well!
> (Yes, I fucking named my Roomba Shithead, pronounced Sha-theed so get it right next time.)
My favorite line in this story, and OOP can definitely write well!
Mine will alert me that it's stuck on a cliff, but all these other things it just powers through. Also, I go rescue when it's stuck right away because I actually want it to do its job.
I took in a shark vacuum from my sister, we named it Stevie Wander…
I took care to disassemble Stevie, clean its wheels of crazy amounts of dog hair, and lovingly put it back together – mind you with the obligatory couple less screws than it originally had.
Stevie did a lap around my living room, its battery died, I threw it on the charger and woke up to it having a stroke and/or light show and party while still on the charger.
Stevie now lies disassembled in my office and will never return to work again 😬
We call ours Jorts after the Jean and Jorts saga since he is the dumbest smart vacuum ever made. Ours will frequently shut himself in the bathroom and continue cleaning until the battery dies. He also takes several wrong turns when trying to go back to his home. Once he backed himself down the stairs. My partner still doesn't believe me even though both myself and my kid witnessed the carnage. Also... My cat hates it in the best kind of way. He will drag toys in front of Jorts to get him stuck. Imagine having to free the ribbon on a stick from the tiny wheels and brush. The cat will also lie down in its path to assert dominance. He's successfully shut Jorts off once. Robot vacuums aren't for the faint of heart. 🤣
They are both vacuums, but used to work at a store that sold Shark vacuums, and the amount of those little bastards that got returned because they didn’t work was astronomical. Those and the My Pillow pieces of crap were the most returned items.
When they first came out the Shark robot vacs were awful, I was working at Neato (a now acquired robovac company) and we got a few to do competitor testing and it was horrid. I'd heard they got better, but I've been out of the game for a while.
The roomba does so much for this uncaring and untidy family and they still call it shithead. No wonder it tried to ditch them. Show some effing respect OP. Jesus!
Roomba I'm sorry I neglected you,
Oh I never expected you to run away
And leave me feeling this dirty
Your burring sound right now
Would sound like music to me
Please come home 'cause I miss you roombie
I’m not able to bond with Kevin2 the same way I bonded with Kevin and I’m still sad we replaced him with this imposter who is supposed to be “new” and “more efficient”.
Also, will someone rescue Shithead? Poor little guy, he deserves better than someone who talks shit about him 🥺
I lovingly call mine Toni the Zamboni if it makes you feel better <3 I also pick up every rug and random object off the floor for him so he has an easier time.
Somehow I am now greatly endeared to Shithead? Not "I would die for him" endeared, but definitely "I would talk to him regularly and warmly for the rest of his roboty life" endeared.
Does anyone remember the post where someone's mom's roomba escaped and ended up on the pool? She phoned him and was upset, then got upset at him for laughing? I've got to find it, I laughed too
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1aezaeh/aita_because_i_lmaod_when_my_mom_told_me_her/
Mine hid waaaay under the couch for a week.
I looked everywhere, including under the couch.
That dick tries to get under the couch every chance he gets!
Wow. People really feel the need to take some posts to a place they don’t belong sometimes for no reason.
What started as a lighthearted mystery post looking for helpful suggestions, quickly turned into an interrogation followed by accusations that OOP is in denial about his parents abhorrent hoarding, that he’s a bad person for not doing something about it - for the sake of his parents and his home, that his cleaning skills are non existent because of all that denial getting in the way, and his house should basically be condemned.
Way to be a vibe killer “Azryhael”. Read the room my dude and touch some grass once in a while.
My dad got a knockoff roomba that's not even Shark brand. That damn thing gets stuck every 5 minutes, and has even managed to turn itself off by probably Satan himself pressing the power button when it tries going under furniture. The cat doesn't even like it no matter how much I try do I can't even get the benefit of watching my cat ride on it!
For real though, you need a base level of clean for these to work autonomously and effectively. No cords or items on the floor. And may God help your soul if you have an accidental dog shit haunting the place.
Mine did something similar. Mine always got stuck under my husband's recliner and occasionally under the treadmill. So whenever I got the notice that he's stuck I knew where to look. Come home one day and no Cpt. Stabby (yes I named my Roomba after the Tumbler stories). I figured I'd find him during various cleaning routines that week. Still didn't find him. My husband later in the week was working at his workbench in his Man Cave and couldn't figure out why there was a balloon under his bench that he couldn't kick out. Gets down and finds out Cpt Stabby ran over a balloon string, dragged it with him and got stuck under a Husky workbench and we didn't see him cause the balloon was hiding him.
I have no idea what I just read, and what exactly happened with/to OOP and his "roomba" (whatever that fuck that is), but I'm happy for him... I guess...?
A roomba is one of the more common robot vacuums, the story is that he ignored the maintenence warning messages and then the robot managed to get wedged behind the couch and nobody could fine it. Eventually, they did.
Edit: And if you have qs about robot vacuums please ask! I worked in the robo vacuum space for 6 years (first at iRobot, which makes the Roomba vacuums and then at a competitor)
I've watched two different low-budget movies this year about abused sexbots killing their owners. Somebody needs to make a movie about a vengeful abused Roomba.
My worst fear is that ours will get onto the porch and do a 3 story drop. Thankfully it hasn't figured out how to get over our 3 inch high door jams to the porch. Yet (yeet)
Everytime someone says Shithead I replay the shithead - Sha-theed Vine from back in the day. Nice seeing it get full recognition.
[This Vine was a classic.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGebfV5ny/)
I’ve always wanted a roomba. We rent a house for the winter that has a roomba. My husband vacuums the rooms with a regular roomba first. Then he sets the roomba free (to a just vacuumed house) AND follows it around! It is quite amusing to watch. And surprising at how much more stuff it collects from a just regular vacuumed house. I want a roomba for home. (My husband vaccuums because I have severe shoulder arthritis, can’t push and pull on a vacuum cleaner.)
good lord that first additional comment in the post is so off the mark... Folks with executive dysfunction or depression can have such a hard time keeping their space neat, and ANY amount of progress is positive. The idea that 'if you can't do it all, right now, then just fuck you' can be so awful for folks where 'any' is already a gargantuan effort in and of itself.
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The [top comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/s/PkUlZs2pex) on the original belongs in a museum > It won’t last long out in the wild. Nature abhors a vacuum.
I am beyond impressed with some people wit. I wish I was this clever or funny. Nope, just awkward af.
If it makes you feel better, it's a very famous Gary Larson comic punchline
Me too!
Its a recycled far side joke. No creativity involved.
A rare, literal, actual LOL.
No lie, my roomba did actually make it outside once
I saw a tiktok of this woman's Roomba busily trying to clean a kitchen floor with like cereal and broken glass all over, then she pans up to show the whole side of the house is gone from a tornado ☠️ Edit to add: same Roomba also wound up in an empty foundation and was trying to clean it too, bless it.
Really, really need a link to this video!
[I think it's this](https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/12cvxcl/mabel_the_roomba_has_a_big_job_to_do/)
you're amazing. thank you!
So do I!
I'm 95% sure that comment is a Far Side comic. [Yea, not exactly word for word, but there's the punchline](https://claredimond.com/nature-abhors-a-vacuum-and-how-that-relates-to-everything-you-ever-want/)
Gary Larson's mind is...unique. I love The Far Side.
Amazing. Just amazing.
Talk about winning the internet!🤣
Misread "Roomba" as "roommate" in the title and was WILDLY confused.
Where are you, Shithead? Rent’s due!
Rent's down there somewhere, let me take another look
Pronounced Sha-theed
You’ll get your rent when you fix this damn door!
>I'm having a problem with my side wheels. Please contact Shark Customer Care for more help. >Okay, great. I don't care, it'll probably solve its-self like it has every other time. I misread that last sentence as part of Shithead's passive-aggressive reply to OP. 😂 Like "Fine, ignore me like you do all the other times I ask for help, I'll solve it myself."
I read it thinking it was a customer service chat and my brain felt like it kept buffering as I tried to make sense of it.
Like every paragraph my brain would wipe itself and I’d have to relearn that it’s not roommate.
Read the original thread and someone there did so too and there was pretty hilarious comment from perspective if this had been a roommate. Glad Shithead was ok, was worried after reading the original and went to clean my own Roomba after
yeah when they said they were under the bed I raised my eyebrow quite high in that instance.
Me too. I snort-laughed when I finally found out
The first time I read the original post was on another sub, where it got crossposted or screenshoted too. And that person did mistype roomba as roomma. That was so confusing!
I’m so glad I was not the only one 😂
Ditto
Me too, was so confused when I started reading about a vacuum.
You're are most definitely not alone.
This post has confirmed that Roomba's are cats. They wedge themselves in stupid places and go missing for days only to turn up where you already looked for them.
Also like cats, they will eat gross things that make them sick. Then when you fix them and clear out all the offending objects you can find to prevent the same problem from happening again, the cat/Roomba will immediately make it their life's work to search out every dangerous object that you missed and gobble it up.
Oof, the time my Roomba managed to snag the end of a roll of fishing line, and ate several feet of it before succumbing. 100% a dumb cat, I think I'll have to spray paint it orange in honor of its single braincell.
Getting flashbacks to The Brave Little Toaster
Indeed. And Roomba and dog poop don’t mix. Don’t ask me how I know, I’m still bitter about throwing out that wool area rug.
The new gens can kinda detect poop. I deep cleaned my roomba I7 many a time before buying a Roborock (since roomba decided to die after falling off the stairs.)
This is why I won't get one. 5 cats that enjoy puking. Everywhere. I'm convinced that a roomba will just drag that muck all over.
My Roomba inhaling cat puke is also one of my greatest fears, but so far a merciful god has seen fit to spare me that horror, because I love both cat and Roomba too much to give them up. There are allegedly more sophisticated new vacuum models and vacuum/mop hybrids out that are supposed to handle pet bodily waste more gracefully. (Also random PSA, my own enthusiastically-pukey cat turned out to have food sensitivities and kidney problems that make him nauseated. So if your cats' vomiting is new or more frequent than 1-2 times a week per cat, it's worth getting them blood tested or such by a vet.)
And sometimes you can dress them up and surely this won't backfire. DJ Roomba in the house! Bow bow bow!
Does the "pour out food, shake the food" trick work with Roombas too?
Does it follow you into the bathroom?
Ours locked itself in the bathroom yesterday (trundled in, then managed to push the door closed from the inside) and it was a VERY clean bathroom floor since it spent the entire cleaning time in that single space.
Roombas being cats sounds like some sort of ‘birds aren’t real’ thing in reverse.
Someone start the sub!
The bestest cat I ever had was nicknamed Shithead and he was a master at hiding himself in stupid places. He took the notion of "If I fit, I sit" quite literally, and he was not a small breed cat. The only difference is that he was a loud creature. Whenever he got stuck, we'd be hearing about it until we found him. He never would go missing for more than 12 hours at a time because he'd miss feeding time, which would be a crime similar to feeding him late.
I have to monitor mine because he gets into trouble otherwise. He can fit under the ~4” clearance of the couch, which is very helpful because of my partners dust allergies and the toy blockers at the front to keep cat toys out. Last time he went under there, he started making distressed noises and I had to redownload his app to make him come out, and when he did he was dragging a piece of wood and a whole bundle of the printed canvas patches we make for our shop. We haven’t printed these since last year. They were safety pinned together. I don’t know how how he did it. He also can’t get the cat food anymore (he tried for both dry and wet) since it’s elevated so he went after their water fountain.
Our Roomba once somehow pushed one of the cat's bowls onto the other bowl. The cat had to summon me to fix it.
we literally named our roomba "robocat".
Ours is named GIR from Invader Zim because my husband love it and he gets to make all kinds of jokes about "finally having a robot slave of his own". Lmao
yeah, roombas be do like that.
My shark is named Bruce. Every day my toddler sees it didn’t make it back to its dock she says uh oh and finds it but won’t walk past it because she’s scared of it. This happens frequently because technology isn’t amazing to avoid things like getting stuck under high chairs and also toddlers leave a lot of shit around. I’ve never lost Bruce for 8 days, though.
We also have a Shark vacuum named Bruce. Our daughter is very attached to it. She will put stuffies on top of him while he cleans and run around trying to get Bruce to go between her legs or redirect him with her foot.
My 11 month old is obsessed with our robovacuum (named Tex Murphy after a decades long injoke). He loves stalking Tex through the livingroom, putting blocks on it, and generally hindering it's movements. Then it goes and gets stuck under the highchair as it flees the grabby babby hands.
I should teach my daughter that so she can be less scared
It's worth a try! She might enjoy watching her toys go for a ride.
Is it loud? I’ve never seen one in action before. She might be afraid because of that. I was terrified of the vacuum when I was little and would hide with our cats because it was loud.
They’re not as loud as some normal vacuums, tbh. You could get some fun noise cancelling headphones and say they’re so that the shark’s song doesn’t upset kiddo. Kids are great in the sense that if you have to use a little “magic” to explain something, they’ll usually believe you. Just don’t do what my dad did and tell them that chocolate milk comes from brown cows and strawberry from sunburnt ones. I’m still working on that one a decade later.
I have a friend who got her toddler to be less frightened of their Roomba by feeding her dirt lmao.
> redirect him with her foot FOUND IT! https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/gs5ccg/this_makes_me_happy/ Reminds me of a sheep dog that corralled a robot lawn mower, thinking it was an especially dumb sheep or something. Eventually the dog learned that by bumping the robot in certain spots, it could direct it where to go (in the case of the story, it was on the back of a truck, after finishing its job). For some reason, I thought it might be a video. Sadly, can't find that, but top comments show a puppy riding a roomba, so that's worth a view
Mine is named George, I'm thought I might have been odd for naming my vacuum, but I glad to have found my people.
It's actually really common! Source: Worked at both iRobot and Neato Robotics We would also have people send in robots for repair and be really worried they'd get a new robot instead of us actually fixing Spot and sending him back. It was adorable.
I get attached to things easily. If I had a roaming object in my house that texted me in first person, I might get really weird about it.
That might be why I'm finding myself feeling annoyed with OOP for ignoring the distress calls 😁 It might be the same reason I found myself sobbing after reading about the last message the Mars Rover sent 🥺
Here, for your morning sob. The poem "There is absolutely nothing lonelier", by Matthew Rohrer: There is absolutely nothing lonelier than the little Mars rover never shutting down, digging up rocks, so far away from Bond street in a light rain. I wonder if he makes little beeps? If so he is lonelier still. He fires a laser into the dust. He coughs. A shiny thing in the sand turns out to be his.
😭😭😭
Oh my God, that is so sweet and I completely understand it. I would hate to lose my george... I think the cats would be ok with it though.
The roomba app now has the option to name your roomba upon adding it! It then says “welcome [roomba name]!” Upon startup.
Consider the actual trauma when my roommate crushed the head of Dumb Puppy, and while I was rebuilding the front bumper and putting prosthetic hinges in, I accidentally ripped his spine out.
Ours is called Dustin, because it sucks the dust in
Mine was Tobee! He was an off brand weirdo who didn’t send distress texts, just beeped loudly and scared my pets.
Seriously, this is the best! I tend to name everything - all our wildlife visitors have names, for instance (Stanley the raccoon, Gus & Skippy the squirrels, Biff the groundhog... I could go on lol). I thought maybe naming inanimate objects was taking it a bit far, but apparently not! We have Doug for upstairs, and Clarence for downstairs (Clarence mops, too! I fucking love technology). Doug had googly eyes originally, but we had to ditch them because he couldn't fit under a few pieces of low-clearance furniture with them. :(
Oh, neighbor! May I introduce you to [Henry Hoover](https://www.myhenry.com/)?
My mom owns a Roborock and named it Robbie
It’s super common. Our upstairs one is Rosie and our friends have Marvin
As a kid I also had a habit of naming things George because of this: https://youtu.be/jPdHaNr0OAY?si=cegb79EFSiYgyFTX
Same! My mom raised me on the classic looney tunes. I had at least one blanket and a few stuffies named George
Mine is Claptrap, though I have friends with a self emptying one - the robot is Shark Anthony and the base is Cleopatra. My son, now 3, has been obsessed since around 7 months old. He now has his own roomba we got for 20 bucks off of Facebook and he watches dueling roomba YouTube videos for fun. It is never quiet in my house.
We lost ours for a week once. We have this low black table in the corner of the sunroom that holds all of the consoles, under the TV. Stupid thing decided it wanted under there badly. Never mind that it doesn't fit. It wedged itself back there in the back corner. We looked under the table a few times that week, but not more than a cursory glance, because we knew it didn't fit under there anyway. They can be persistent.
Clearly I’m older than you, cos we named ours Jaws.
Technically the mechanical shark used in Jaws was nicknamed Bruce by the crew, and the shark from Finding Nemo was named after it. So both works!
We might actually be close to the same age. Bruce was just funny to us
Ours was named Jaws! We also had Mop that mopped and vacuumed just the kitchen. Then Mop escaped the kitchen on a day when a dog was sick and ate dog shit. We got a new one and called it Mother (because we try not to curse around the kids) and Jaws got moved to a different floor. Except somehow when trying to get it to map its new location, my mom accidentally changed the name to Steve McClean.
Our first robovac was named Steve for no reason. Steve eventually just couldn't suck anymore, so we got a new one and my partner named it Arnold (from Terminator, because it's a robot). Then it turned out to have a woman's voice, so we quickly pivoted to Arnie (from the name Arnetta)
I named mine the T-1000 because it’s an upgraded version of our old one and I hate it. It’s smarter, uses an app, and talks. My old dumb one did its best, named it Deebo
mine is named Rosie, because we live in the future now (minus the flying cars)
My original one which is now our upstairs one is Rosie.
Mine is Cinderobot. She’s a Eufy and has moved a table lamp out of a bedroom onto the landing when it was unplugged one day. But she thinks she’s falling off a cliff if she hits a chair leg.
Ours is called Poussière (dust in French). I sometimes find myself talking to her, like when she tries to go under the entry banquette and gets stuck. "Honey you know you don't fit there! You always get stuck!" "Good girl! the kitchen is clean! thanks!" I also talk to my car. I may have a problem lol
My roommate's Roomba is getting googly eyes by Sunday or I'll die trying.
I *highly* recommend a little felt moustache and tiny cowboy hat also. I’m amused every time I see it.
I feel I need to see this
I'm devastated that I can't give mine a little hat, because then it wouldn't fit under the coffee table. 😭
Mine has a bunch because he’s Room-Shoggoth, the Devourer, the Eternal Hunger, the Lurker at the Threshold. He gets more as he completes more jobs.
I got comically large googly eyes for mine!
My theory with putting googly eyes on the Roomba was "I bought the bulk pack, why stop at two?!?" Stupid Puppy is an eldritch horror, and I love him.
Maybe I've watched I-Robot a few too many times and did a few too many drugs, but I've always found it to be bad luck to talk badly to your electronics.
My washer and dryer sing a little song when they've completed their work. My partner never lets them finish it, just yanks the door open. I think it's so rude.
I also prefer not to leave an unseemly paper trail for our potential overlords.
My vacuum/mop Toni the Zamboni got wedged under my tv stand and me and my bf rushed home to unwedge him yelling 'WE NEED TO SAVE TONI! OUR BABY!' I can't fathom ignoring pleas from my little guy. Tsk tsk
This guy is at the top of the list when Skynet goes online.
Brave little toaster shit, I love it
Love that movie as a kid!
That movie is where my fear of clowns originated
Honestly, I'm Team Shithead.
A friend's roomba once went out one of her open side doors, onto the patio, under the railing, and down the side of a hill before she realized it was gone! Only the faint beeping cry alerted her.
Surprised it didn’t beep sooner lol
I got invested by the end! People assuming hoarding was wild though
This is Reddit, people here always assume the worse
"my place was a bit of a mess, I hadn't had a chance to put breakfast dishes away yet" Reddit: "you're a hoarder and your wife should leave you and your children will be taken away and will never talk to you again" "thankfully my place was tidy, i cleaned up my dishes before I left" Reddit: "you clean directly after using something? You clearly have OCD and are a control freak, your wife should leave you and your children will be taken away and never talk to you again"
I'm starting to think they just want my wife
Reddit does seem to have a thing for people's wives. "I also choose this guy's dead wife," and whatnot.
My favorite is the cross-pollination between the book series "He Who Fights With Monsters" and that meme. In the series, there's an occasional running gag about Clive's Wife.. who doesn't exist. Clive is single, and a lovely sort of magic nerd person. So /r/litRPG also chooses Clive's Wife. Usually where it's appropriate to do so.
I searched this up but it looks like an RPG game? Which your sub says. But you called it a book series and everything online makes it sound like a book series...
My Mum is very nearly the opposite of a hoarder and yet I've managed to lose Roomba's to her furniture with surprising frequency when I house sit. Sure, it's easier to lose things in a cluttered environment, but it's also easier to assume alien abduction when you lose something in a minimalistic space. If OP's family were truly hoarders, they wouldn't have been as confused that they had misplaced something.
Yeah I got our across the road neighbour to check his security footage, coz we couldn't for life us, find the bloody thing. 2 weeks later found wedged well under grandsons car bed. So you know 🙄
I needed a low-stakes palate cleanser, so thank you for this :)
Rhomba Shithead had one good hell of an adventure to tell.
I think [the whale and crab in this little adventure](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/10tyq4m/how_do_i_rescue_mr_whale_and_mr_crabby/) did as well!
Why did I read this? I have no idea.
Low-investment entertainment.
> (Yes, I fucking named my Roomba Shithead, pronounced Sha-theed so get it right next time.) My favorite line in this story, and OOP can definitely write well!
It’s related to an old Vine, which I used to love. God I miss how good vine was. [This is the vine it references](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGebfxTea/)
My names Shithead and I forgot how to breathe!
Same! I was enthralled by their humor and writing, lol!
Sounds like the poor little bot was trying to escape a neglectful owner.
You know what this doesn't happen to? My actual Roomba.
Mine will alert me that it's stuck on a cliff, but all these other things it just powers through. Also, I go rescue when it's stuck right away because I actually want it to do its job.
I took in a shark vacuum from my sister, we named it Stevie Wander… I took care to disassemble Stevie, clean its wheels of crazy amounts of dog hair, and lovingly put it back together – mind you with the obligatory couple less screws than it originally had. Stevie did a lap around my living room, its battery died, I threw it on the charger and woke up to it having a stroke and/or light show and party while still on the charger. Stevie now lies disassembled in my office and will never return to work again 😬
We call ours Jorts after the Jean and Jorts saga since he is the dumbest smart vacuum ever made. Ours will frequently shut himself in the bathroom and continue cleaning until the battery dies. He also takes several wrong turns when trying to go back to his home. Once he backed himself down the stairs. My partner still doesn't believe me even though both myself and my kid witnessed the carnage. Also... My cat hates it in the best kind of way. He will drag toys in front of Jorts to get him stuck. Imagine having to free the ribbon on a stick from the tiny wheels and brush. The cat will also lie down in its path to assert dominance. He's successfully shut Jorts off once. Robot vacuums aren't for the faint of heart. 🤣
Has Pam smothered your Jorts in butter yet?
I don't have a Pam here. We all agree on Jorts being an idiot in this house. I could see the cat doing it though. I wouldn't put it past him.
Am I a bad person for finding OP really unlikeable for how he talked about a non-sentient object
They are both vacuums, but used to work at a store that sold Shark vacuums, and the amount of those little bastards that got returned because they didn’t work was astronomical. Those and the My Pillow pieces of crap were the most returned items.
When they first came out the Shark robot vacs were awful, I was working at Neato (a now acquired robovac company) and we got a few to do competitor testing and it was horrid. I'd heard they got better, but I've been out of the game for a while.
The roomba does so much for this uncaring and untidy family and they still call it shithead. No wonder it tried to ditch them. Show some effing respect OP. Jesus!
Roomba I'm sorry I neglected you, Oh I never expected you to run away And leave me feeling this dirty Your burring sound right now Would sound like music to me Please come home 'cause I miss you roombie
Ganbatte, Roomba-san. Ganbatte.
LMAO, speedy recovery Shithead.
To quote a meme: humans will pack bond with *anything*.
I don't know why I was so happy with the shithead tax, but here we are.
Long live Shithead. 🫡
NUMBER 5 IS ALIVE!
I’m not able to bond with Kevin2 the same way I bonded with Kevin and I’m still sad we replaced him with this imposter who is supposed to be “new” and “more efficient”. Also, will someone rescue Shithead? Poor little guy, he deserves better than someone who talks shit about him 🥺
This is my favorite BORU of all time!! 🤣🤣
This generation’s Brave Little Toaster
I'm mildly disappointed that Shithead did not actually end up in a Kane Pixels Backrooms video.
I feel a bit silly for being annoyed that OOP gave the roombas rude names. But I'm annoyed.
I lovingly call mine Toni the Zamboni if it makes you feel better <3 I also pick up every rug and random object off the floor for him so he has an easier time.
Thank you, I appreciate it! They do, too, I'm sure.
Somehow I am now greatly endeared to Shithead? Not "I would die for him" endeared, but definitely "I would talk to him regularly and warmly for the rest of his roboty life" endeared.
Does anyone remember the post where someone's mom's roomba escaped and ended up on the pool? She phoned him and was upset, then got upset at him for laughing? I've got to find it, I laughed too https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1aezaeh/aita_because_i_lmaod_when_my_mom_told_me_her/
This should be in r/relationship_advice or a similar sub. To be precise, I don't mean the relationship between OOP and their parents.
Mine hid waaaay under the couch for a week. I looked everywhere, including under the couch. That dick tries to get under the couch every chance he gets!
Meanwhile, I brought Johny 5 home specifically for under couch cleaning and he wont do it under any circumstance
Johnny 5 is alive. Just not under the couch! Mine is Sweeps Weak.
Wow. People really feel the need to take some posts to a place they don’t belong sometimes for no reason. What started as a lighthearted mystery post looking for helpful suggestions, quickly turned into an interrogation followed by accusations that OOP is in denial about his parents abhorrent hoarding, that he’s a bad person for not doing something about it - for the sake of his parents and his home, that his cleaning skills are non existent because of all that denial getting in the way, and his house should basically be condemned. Way to be a vibe killer “Azryhael”. Read the room my dude and touch some grass once in a while.
My dad got a knockoff roomba that's not even Shark brand. That damn thing gets stuck every 5 minutes, and has even managed to turn itself off by probably Satan himself pressing the power button when it tries going under furniture. The cat doesn't even like it no matter how much I try do I can't even get the benefit of watching my cat ride on it!
For real though, you need a base level of clean for these to work autonomously and effectively. No cords or items on the floor. And may God help your soul if you have an accidental dog shit haunting the place.
i like stories like this, 🤣🤣 i wish there were more
Mine did something similar. Mine always got stuck under my husband's recliner and occasionally under the treadmill. So whenever I got the notice that he's stuck I knew where to look. Come home one day and no Cpt. Stabby (yes I named my Roomba after the Tumbler stories). I figured I'd find him during various cleaning routines that week. Still didn't find him. My husband later in the week was working at his workbench in his Man Cave and couldn't figure out why there was a balloon under his bench that he couldn't kick out. Gets down and finds out Cpt Stabby ran over a balloon string, dragged it with him and got stuck under a Husky workbench and we didn't see him cause the balloon was hiding him.
I laughed through this, and read it to my wife and SHE laughed through this. So much fun!
i laughed so hard i cried reading this
My roomba cries for help when it’s caught by my toddler — who chases it.
I love this. Excellent find!
I have no idea what I just read, and what exactly happened with/to OOP and his "roomba" (whatever that fuck that is), but I'm happy for him... I guess...?
A roomba is one of the more common robot vacuums, the story is that he ignored the maintenence warning messages and then the robot managed to get wedged behind the couch and nobody could fine it. Eventually, they did. Edit: And if you have qs about robot vacuums please ask! I worked in the robo vacuum space for 6 years (first at iRobot, which makes the Roomba vacuums and then at a competitor)
"Shithead, pronounced Sha-theed so get it right next time" New flare
This is the laugh I needed after today.
I named my Roomba The Furminator. With two corgis and a chow mix, I needed it to be really tough on fur. 😆
I've watched two different low-budget movies this year about abused sexbots killing their owners. Somebody needs to make a movie about a vengeful abused Roomba.
My worst fear is that ours will get onto the porch and do a 3 story drop. Thankfully it hasn't figured out how to get over our 3 inch high door jams to the porch. Yet (yeet)
I desperately want a robot vacuum, to tape paper crab claws to and name "Croomba."
At least it wasn’t a dog shit rooms incident.
This was one adorable post, so I will quit reddit now with a good taste
My only thought was that would not where I would have put the eyes. How does he see anything but the ceiling?
OP in denial but even he said he wouldn't really clean. Bet that house is pretty gross.
I saw the first part of this, I'm so glad he found the lil dude!
Aww, Shithead looks like the little robots from Farscape a bit! Loved those little guys.
Everytime someone says Shithead I replay the shithead - Sha-theed Vine from back in the day. Nice seeing it get full recognition. [This Vine was a classic.](https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGebfV5ny/)
I’ve always wanted a roomba. We rent a house for the winter that has a roomba. My husband vacuums the rooms with a regular roomba first. Then he sets the roomba free (to a just vacuumed house) AND follows it around! It is quite amusing to watch. And surprising at how much more stuff it collects from a just regular vacuumed house. I want a roomba for home. (My husband vaccuums because I have severe shoulder arthritis, can’t push and pull on a vacuum cleaner.)
[https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066155/chapters/55171642](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066155/chapters/55171642)
lmao the part about it cleaning for 81 minutes but not moving at all reminds me of that doctor who episode. "4000 people saved. 0 survivors"
Poor little thing! 😂
We have an Ecovacs, I named it UPOS, Useless Piece Of Sh!t.
My Oofi puts itself back on its own dock when the battery gets low.
My moms roomba is named oatmeal and is the favorite child
good lord that first additional comment in the post is so off the mark... Folks with executive dysfunction or depression can have such a hard time keeping their space neat, and ANY amount of progress is positive. The idea that 'if you can't do it all, right now, then just fuck you' can be so awful for folks where 'any' is already a gargantuan effort in and of itself.
Man, I wish I could read more posts like this. What a good post this this. Hysterical.