Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 7, 1990                   TAG: 9007070015
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DON'T BLAME ME IF THE ROBOT GOES BERSERK

If there is any good news here it is that it still needs work and isn't going to be put on the market for two years.

You want to be scared? Well, this thing says "cleaning will commence" and then it starts to clean up.

They say it knows how to avoid hitting furniture, human beings and other warm-blooded animals in its path.

Sure. I can see the headline now:

\ BERSERK ROBOT INJURES AGED NEWSMAN\

\ From a hospital bed, I tell my story to the media:

"Well, I set the damned thing to clean the upstairs bedrooms and it apparently wanted to clean the kitchen.

"First thing I knew, it rolled down the steps, opened the door, came outside and attacked me from the rear as I was putting this waterproof junk on the stoop and walk.

"I'm lucky the battery got weak when it did. I was able to beat it to death with a stick of stove wood before I passed out from loss of blood."

This machine will not only be a hazard to older persons, it also will put innocent children at risk.

I am not talking about the most chilling dangers - including sucking up the baby. I am talking morals here.

This thing talks, and you know as well as I do that its voice mechanism will get all fouled up.

Thus, a young mother sets the machine to clean the living room, where her 5-year-old is playing with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The voice bank goes nuts in the kid's presence and later he enters the kitchen, where his mother is making tomato surprises for lunch and says:

"Hey, old lady. No more of those (expletive deleted) tomato things for me. Those (expletive deleted) things are for (expletive deleted) sissies.

"Gimme a rare hamburger and fries for lunch, you old bat, and go heavy on the (expletive deleted) mayo."

After the mother belts the kid and washes his mouth out with soap, she finds the cleaner has eaten her $3,000 oriental rug.

She is still screaming over the smashed corpse of the robot when her husband comes home.

I know. You're saying there goes Old Bennie being an alarmist again.

Hey, pal, buy one when they go on the market. Use it in the best of health.

Just don't come sniveling to me when it calls your Aunt Zelda an "old broad" and makes insulting references to her figure.