Get outta my house

 Today's Roundseventeen post is about Dog Bowls. 

"Dog Bowls," you say, "wow, Rich is really running out of topics and with President Elect Biden stepping into office, he's not going to have anything to write (complain) about anymore. Maybe he'll shut this rag down and give us all a much needed respite from his semantic jerkoffery."

Slow your roll there, dear reader. I'm building up to something. 

At least I think I am.

As mentioned in previous posts, my family spent last weekend at a very expensive airbnb in Palm Springs. We hadn't taken a vacation in years, we've been holed up in the house for nine months and stressed to the max, so we decided we could all use a break. 

On the way home our dog Lucy, who, because she was abused by her former family has a nervous stomach, wanted to have another look at the breakfast she had eaten 5 hours previously and decided to hurl it up. The stench quickly filled the tiny cabin of our Mazda CX5 and I made a beeline for the nearest industrial business park in West Covina.

It was there that I cleaned up the mess (it's odd that digested dog food looks and smells the same as predigested dog food, sorry) and so I put Lucy's bowl on the asphalt lot so she could rehydrate with water. It was also there that I mistakenly left her shiny stainless steel dog bowls and got back in the car to make another beeline for Culver City (home).

So now, I need to replace the dog bowls that she has so come to love. 

Well guess who wants to help me find suitable replacements dog bowls for Lucy? 

Jeff Bezos.

Because within hours of solving the mystery of the missing dog bowls, I started getting ads in my social media feed for Dog Bowls. What?

I know this happens to all of us. And I know there might be a reasonable explanation for the occurrence. But there can be no other explanation than to conclude that our Alexa AI device is listening in on us.

Why? Because in the short time we discovered the bowls were missing, not one of us had texted, written or otherwise communicated the 0's and 1's necessary for Big Brother to know we would need Dog Bowls.

It is unnerving.

But it's also an opportunity. Because now in an effort to prove my theory, I am walking into the kitchen and purposely telling my wife, "We should get a tool shed." We don't need a tool shed. But because I wrote ToolSshed here I'm sure I'll see ads for tool sheds. 

What I actually said was something else, "We should get a ___________." And for obvious reasons I can't share that with you.

But the list of things we should get is long. And obtuse. And highly specific. And maybe even puerile.

When the ads for those undisclosed items start showing up in my feed, you can be sure I will screen grab them and share them with you. 

It's on, Jeff Bezos, it's on.