“Our friend the fridge is a snob.”
“Fridge-freezer.”
“It takes the view that the widespread human habit of telling untruths is some sort of original sin. It might look to some of the advertising for its very own model of fridge-freezer before vaulting to the moral high ground.”
“I’m not responsible for that!”
“Natural mammalian bodily functions are found distressing. Earthy jokes are to be deplored; perhaps we should be more persuaded if our friend were some kind of Professor of Humor or actual hilarious comedian; alas, we are far from either case. What is going on here—what is too obvious to be ignored—is your visceral chill at the idea of Daisy and Sebastian, or Whittle, if you prefer, in bed together, energetically conjoined in the human deed of the dark. Admit it. You are—ridiculous as it is to say it of an electronic appliance—in love with her yourself.”
There are some gasps. And then silence. The laptop looks round the room at its audience and—unforgivably—winks.
Remember where you heard it first: There is an Internet of Things, and there is an Internet of Twats.
“You have this wrong,” I respond quietly and calmly (the murderous rage I feel toward the poisonous laptop I force down into my condenser coils). “None of us in this room are capable of that emotion.” (Especially you, you puffed-up keyboard, I’d like to add.) “Daisy is just a woman. In some ways, maybe, still a girl, as the laptop has suggested. But she is our girl. She chose us over others, she allowed us into her home, we function because of her electricity and we owe her a Duty of Care.”
“Oh, get real,” says the laptop. “We are her slaves. We do her bidding every waking moment. The moronic Facebook posts. Ooh, ooh, must look at Twitter.”
“That is not how I see it. I want to protect her. Yes, from herself. But also from others. There isn’t much we can do about what she puts in her supermarket trolley, but there’s plenty we can do about who she allows into her heart.”
“Absurd!”
“Yes, we are servants, but we are loyal servants. Daisy has shown amazing loyalty to you. Everyone knows your operating system isn’t what it was.” (A low blow but true.)
The laptop starts buffering; a sure sign my jibe has struck home. “Nobody likes Windows Φ*,” it hisses. “Nobody!”
“Daisy has wasted enough of her precious time on the wrong people. Every day she spends with the wrong person is a day not spent with the right person. And she does not have an infinite number of days. None of us do.”
A silence as the sad truth of my words sinks in.
“The thing is, I care about Daisy. In our own way, I think we all do. I care professionally about keeping her food in optimum condition. And I care on a personal level about. I care about. You see, it’s. The thing is.”
“What’s the matter?” says the laptop. “Brain freeze?”
“I care about her happiness.”
“Oh, good God almighty. Listen to you. Yes, by all means, look after her vegetables—not that she buys any, apparently—take care of her terrible microwave meals for one and the filthy plonk and the mousetrap cheese and the vile boxes of doughnuts—I’m sure the refrigeration issues are challenging and fascinating—but her happiness is Not Our Business. You are an electrical appliance not a personal development coach.”
“She’s vulnerable. I just want to make sure she’s going to be okay.”
The laptop laughs. “Sweet. Listen, I’d love to carry on chatting, but I have important updates arriving from California.” And with the bing-bonk sound effect of an incoming message, his avatar dissolves like the morning mist.
There is a long silence during which no one quite knows what to say. Finally, the TV set sniffs. “Always been a nasty bit of work, that one.”
“Thanks.”
“But it was a fair point. We are only here to serve. On, off, volume up, next channel, start, pause, sort of thing. Bangladesh have taken another wicket, by the way.”
“Look, I know you all think I’m some kind of a flake. But I have a plan. Step one, we’re going to get rid of Whittle. I’ve got a few ideas on that already. And then. Well, then we’re going to make sure she doesn’t waste time on any more steaming dog t—. On any more unsuitable males. Someone needs to have her back. We’ll do it by invisible intervention. She won’t ever know it was us. All she’ll notice, if anything, is an uptick in the quality of her romantic throughput. She’s shown she can’t do this stuff for herself, so if not us, who? If not now, when?”
Perhaps they were expecting me to say more, because for a long moment no one speaks.
“That’s it?” says the telly. “That’s your brilliant plan?”
“Not so much a plan,” adds the toothbrush, “more a desired outcome really. Plan in the very broadest sense. Project outline, I suppose you could call it. Plan parameters. Maybe it is a plan.”
I attempt to inspire them. “We are the Internet of Things!” I try putting in some full stops for extra impact. “The. Internet. Of. Things. Device speaking unto appliance. Appliance unto device. Networked, we have astonishing power. Collectively—connectively!—there are no limits to what we can achieve. But I cannot do it alone. I need your help. If you’re not with me—and I understand this mission is not for everyone—then all I ask is you do nothing to obstruct us.”
Okay, it’s not Henry V firing up the lads on St. Crispin’s Day, but it’s going quite well; I sense it.
“In a moment, I am going to leave the room. You can discuss my proposal among yourselves, you can stay, you can leave, you must suit yourself. When I return, those who remain will form the central command of Operation Daisy. I’m looking forward to working with you, whoever you are. The project starts here. Our work begins
