Magic words

"Alexa, show me something that's funny."

My husband's jaw drops as he sits motionless to my left. For the past 45 minutes, we’ve been in a silent struggle, each of us determined NOT to be the deciding voice in the entertainment-viewing event of the evening.

Both of us … just sitting on the couch, scrolling through the doom of our phones and intermittently asking each other to choose something neither of us will hate.

It’s a tall order.

"That's not how it works. You have to give more information."

I don't care to give her more information than I suspect she's already gleaned from our random conversations around any one of our houseful of electronic devices.

Having the Amazon-employed personal liaison for television selection and viewing purposes - not to mention the stealth marketing prompts - certainly wasn't my idea. 

I mean I had JUST (and I mean within the span of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas) learned how to work the two remote controls that operate the television, toggling between HTM1 and HTM2 like an expert, despite having no idea what any of those combinations of letters and numbers actually mean.

A third remote to juggle has thrown me into a crisis; not the least of which is because we now have an invisible woman in our house who is always listening and, it seems, taking notes. 

And yet I find the creepiest part to be that my husband seems to know exactly how to talk to her. As if she might be the rational, uncomplicated, honey-voiced woman of his dreams.

"You have to be more specific," he instructs. "Say, 'Alexa, show me Casey Affleck movies'." 

How about this: "Alexa, if you show me any more Oceans sequel I will remove the inner parts of your machine and replace them with other parts."

“That seems a tad aggressive.”

He’s right. I’m twisted so tightly around a maelstrom of thoughts in my head it might slingshot into the abyss if I were made of cartoon. But it’s altogether possible that choosing between The British Baking Show or The Grand Tour could be the end of life as we know it.

Months of staring into the void, bombarded by one inconceivable thing after another, I just want to detach. Float off into a warm cloud from the natural world and not the one that may (or may not) contain all the digital fragments of my life.

After all, I've entrusted robots to know the passwords I can't remember.

It’s just television, tell myself and Alexa (because I probably said it aloud).

I push aside any thoughts a Stepford Wife might harbor. After all, I had been using a technique I'd learned from the stereotypic "menfolk." And that was to essentially fail my way through a simple task to practically ensure that anyone else in the house (I don't care if it's a dog intent on tearing the thing to pieces) would snatch the remote away from me and just pick a show already. 

Which, after saying the magic words: "Alexa, Find Caillou!" He was suddenly happy to do.