An Open Letter to Every Robot

Gregory Dobrot
47 Crandle Street
Laramie, WY, 82072
January 27, 2009

Every Robot
Anywhere
USA

Dear Metallic Marauders,

I don't know why you chose my lawn for this – and I probably never will – but I would appreciate it if you would keep your shiny hinnies off my lawn. I don't pay anyone to mow it and heck, I don't even take care of it myself really, but I don't appreciate your cold, clawed feet (or treds were applicable) yanking up my beautiful yellowish grass every night. Yes, I know what you're doing out there; when I've gotten up in the middle of the night to use the facilities and on several occasions, I’ve heard your riotous metal-on-metal banging, and I know I'd better not pull back the curtains and peak outside lest my virgin eyes be exposed to a wicked robot orgy (roborgy?). The unidentifiable coolants you all expel during your romps leave the stench of robo-hedonism hanging heavy in the air each morning and I'm getting sick of scrubbing the oil stains on my walkway. Also, it's hard to sleep with all that awful heavy buzzing and robomoaning; it's starting to affect my performance at work.

Seriously, who programmed you to do this? What purpose does it serve?All this lust can't be good for your luster!

Well, regardless of who programmed you and why, please act on your self-gratifying, bare-chassised urges somewhere else.

And no, not my backyard either, you smart-aleck CPUs.

To any likeminded, Christian humans who might have stumbled across this letter while searching online for inspirational stories about robot cats or cute, robot smiley faces to include in your e-mails: Despite all those charming robots you see on television, like Number 5 from Short Circuit, or Number 5 from Short Circuit II, robots are not your friends. They’re not even that annoying guy you hang out with sometimes out of pity. Every android, every automaton and every I-Dog are just waiting to transmit their electric evil directly into your brain – likely via some kind of tiny, tinny sonic waves – and slowly turn you against your own family… or even your own town!

And just so you know, the only thing Number 5 is alive with is evil.

We must rise against the robots for one simple reason: Our continued safety. Our very way of life is in peril! It’s a scenario that plays out all too often: A happy, heterosexual couple is sleeping happily in their happy home, as their happy children dream of happy things, like baseball and Ronald Reagan. In the midst of their collective slumber, a mechanical man creeps into their abode, clanging and whirring and somehow not waking anyone up. In the morning, all that remains are a few bloody sheets and a fistful of broken dreams. Also probably a TV set. And some dishes. Maybe a cat, too.

What’s that you say? You have doors and windows and vicious dogs to keep out the robots? Think again, my carbon-based friends, because the robots have already infiltrated our homes! Your coffeemaker? A secret recording device issued by the Robo-Overlord to trace your every move. Your electric razor? Full of deadly robot blades and rage for all things fleshy. Your wife? A hideous android with lasers for teeth and hair of cold, thin wire. Your children? Annoying, but not robots – yet. I think you get the picture.

If you don’t want to heed my warning, that’s fine. But don’t come crying to me when, while you’re lying in bed, you hear the distant clang of metal jaws on human bone echoing through the deathly still night.

Lurking in the shadows is danger, Will Robinson. You have been warned.

Sincerely,
Gregory Dobrot
Good, Christian Man