Lousy Kitchen Droid

We used to live in a nice condo, it had a decently sized kitchen with all the necessary appliances, including a dishwasher. That's really one of the more important things that a young couple could ask for in a room designed for the preparation of food.

We moved into a house in March and it we've been calling it our dream house since we saw it. It's not a huge house, but it's a great Chicago-style bungalow with plenty of space to keep our junk and raise a kid.

The drawback is that the kitchen is kind of small and there is no room for a dishwasher.

So I see this commercial on TV for Crazy JJ's House of (Slightly Used) Droids and Appliances. It's got this crazy looking little guy with glowing eyes waving his arms and hawking his wares. He's showing model after model of quisinarts, blenders and window washing droids -- all with this high pitched scratching noise of a voice. Then he gets to "it."

He calls "it" the KD-209 and it is apparently the greatest thing in Kitchen Droid technology since the Laser Bread Slicer 5000. It can wash, dry and put away the dishes. It can clean the counter tops. It has a wet dry scrubber for the floors. It can even feed the dog.

It's got arms and scrubbers, cleaners and dirt sensors. It's got a cheese slicer and a mellon baller, a toaster cleaner, an ice cube maker and a bottle opener. It's got all kinds of neat things and I think to myself "Oh yes, I must have the KD-209." My wife agrees, and soon I am off to Crazy JJ's.

When I get there, I see that there is a KD-209 on the floor, but JJ says that the floor model is the only one left, and all he wanted to do was haggle over the price with me. He kept giving out numbers and numbers, never really stopping and always in that voice that sounds like a Chadra-Fan gnawing on a blackboard.

Finally, we set on a price and I rush home with my new KD-209 happy as a little school girl. I power the thing up, set it loose in the kitchen and go on my merry way. I have to go to work, Patricia has to go to work, Kiera's going to preschool. I figure that there won't be a problem, it's a droid, it's got one of those bolt things so it won't run away or whatever, it can just do the dishes and clean the floor.

I get home from a long day of gladiating and I see a horrific mess. There are dirty and broken dishes everywhere, the KD-209 is spewing smoke from one nozzle and grease from another, the floor is a mess, the faucet is spraying water all over the place and a cat is hanging from the ceiling fan, which is odd because I don't have a cat. There's garbage on the floor and I have no idea where my dog, Scotch, is. She must be in the basement hiding under a rug or something.

I fight my way to the droid and shut the thing down. My wife is furious! This thing is supposed to help us out in the house, not make a mess of everything. So I call Crazy JJ's and as I try to explain the situation, the scratchy, high-pitched voice on the other end says "Oh, uh, this isn't JJ. JJ is not here, JJ is on Tatooine, this is his, uh.... this is Fred. Yeah."

"You sound familiar," I reply. "Do I know you?"

"No no no no no," he screeches. "This is Fred."

I take the thing back to the store and "Fred" (who looked an awful lot like JJ) wouldn't let me return it because it is damaged. I try to explain that the stains and the scratches are from the droid running amok in my kitchen, but the little shyster wouldn't take the thing back. Eventually, he agrees to give me store credit on my next purchase.

I look around and there really isn't anything that I needed, there was an old protocol droid that boasted knowledge of over 17 languages, but I thought that number was a bit low. There was also a binary load lifter, but it was missing a lifting arm and wouldn't be able to really lift too much. I don't think that I have anything that I really need lifting, anyway. There was a set of leg rockets from an R2 unit, but evidently those things are not compatible with anything else. It's the sockets or something.

I was really disappointed, there wasn't anything that I wanted. That is, until I saw the 5DF-1 ship washing droid. The Danger Sled gets a lot of space dirt on it with all my traveling between home and Hacknor, so it would be nice to have a little help cleaning it.