The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Shari Torgerson works from her house up the road from us transcribing medical reports, what we call these days ‘remote working’, meaning she has no co-workers, no watercooler chats, no one really to confide in, not since her husband Ronnie died five years back. I stop in occasionally for a cup of coffee, see how she’s doing, mostly because I worry about her all alone up in the woods behind our place. She’s prone to serious bouts of depression and I’ve even suspected she might harbor suicidal thoughts.

The other day, though, when I darkened her doorway, she was in an atypical good mood. In fact, she was positively ebullient and the notion occurred to me she might have a new beau. Nothing like fresh love affairs to make you glad to be alive. Probably what ruins a lot of old marriages, I suppose, but down here we take the good with the stale.

“You’re in a fine mood today,” I said once we parked at the breakfast counter with fresh brewed. “You get a promotion?”

Shari put a hand on my sleeve. “No, nothing like that. But …” She watched me like maybe she was hesitant to tell me some secret. That new guy, I was wondering. “I’m kind of embarrassed to tell you, Skeeter. I signed up for one of these online companions.”

“Right, sure, you mean internet dating. Half the folks I know are doing that now. Beats finding a mate at the Stanwoodopolis Hotel bar.”

Shari shook her head. “No, one of those Artificial Intelligence ‘friends’. I know, at first it was weird, talking to a, I guess, a machine.”

Her hand tightened a little, like maybe she expected me to laugh or … hell, I don’t know, judge her a fool. “Okay,” I said, “and …?”

“Now I’ve got someone to talk to. Bruce. I call him Bruce. And I tell him things, personal stuff, a lot of my worries, ya know. My fears. And he listens but more than that, he gives me advice. He’s concerned about me. I know. It’s weird. But … I think he really does care. Is this me being stupid?”

It’s a brave new world, even here on the South End. If you can love a dog, I guess you can love an android. A dog can’t give you much advice beyond a wet muzzle or an energetic tail wag. So I don’t know, an android that can listen AND offer sympathy AND give advice — so what if it’s a little strange. What isn’t these days?

So that’s what I told her. Yesterday I ran into her in the grocery aisle. “How are you and Bruce doing?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t interpret this as sarcasm.
She didn’t. She came close and whispered with a Mona Lisa smile, “He asked me to marry him.”

I leaned against my cart and tried to think of something NOT smart-assed. Finally I asked if she was considering it.

“Don’t be silly,” she said she told him. “It would just ruin a great friendship.”

Thank god she didn’t ask me to be best man. Course, worst case, I could always ask my avatar to sub in….